"Let's get our circle, here. That's good, come on. Chang Xi, you're the youngest now."
A little girl with big almond-shaped eyes came shyly into the ring of people. Thea hadn't seen her before- she must have turned seven since the last summer Circle. She was dressed in jade green as Kuan Yin, the Chinese goddess of compassion.
Still shy, she took a sprig of broom-real broom, the plant-and swept the area inside the ring. "Thea, you do the salt."
Thea was surprised and pleased. She took the bowl of sea salt that Lawai'a offered, and walked slowly around the perimeter of the circle, sprinkling it
"Alaric, you take the water-"
Lawai'a broke oft looking toward the stairway, seeming startled. Thea saw other people look. She turned around.
Two adults, mothers, were coming down the stairs. As the light shone on the first woman's face, Thea felt a jolt.
It was Aunt Ursula.
In a gray suit, her expression as bleak as Thea had ever seen it.
Nobody in the room made a noise. They all stood still as Joshua trees, watching until the women reached the bottom. Interrupting a Circle in the middle of casting was unheard of.
"Good Samhain," Lawai'a said faintly.
"Good Samhain." Aunt Ursula was polite, but she didn't smile. like a displeased teacher. "I'm very sorry to bother you, but this will only take a minute."
Thea's heart had begun to pound, slow and hard.
It's just guilty conscience, she tried to tell herself. This doesn't have to be about you.
But it did. And something inside her knew even before Aunt Ursula looked the Circle over and said, "Thea Sophia Harman."
As if she doesn't know what I look like, Thea thought dazedly.
She damped down hard on a wild impulse simply to brush past Aunt Ursula and head for the street. Now she knew why rabbits were so stupid as to leave a good hiding place and run blindly when a dog came near. Just panic, that's all.
She stepped away from a staring Kishi on her left and a dismayed Nat on her right. She could feel every pair of eyes in the place on her. "What is it?" she said, trying to look surprised. Aunt Ursula's eyes met hers directly, as if to say, You know. But she didn't say anything, which was almost as bad.
"Dani Naete Mella Abforth." Oh, Eileithyia. Not Dani, too.... Dani was stepping out of the circle. Her small head was held proudly, but Thea could see the fear in her eyes. She walked, linen swaying around her ankles, to stand beside Thea. Dani, I'm sorry....
"That's all," Aunt Ursula said. "The rest of you go on with your Circle. Good Samhain, everybody." To Thea and Dani, she said, "You need to come outside."
They followed her silently. There was nothing else to do.
When they were out in the cool night air, Dani said, "Is-something wrong?" She looked from Aunt Ursula to the other woman, who was short but had considerable presence.
And seemed familiar to Thea... and then she had it.
It's Nana Buruku. From the Inner Circle.
This isn't a Harman family matter. The Inner Circle itself is calling us.
"There are some things we need to talk about. Come on and let's get it all cleared up fast," Nana Buruku said quietly, putting a cinnamon-colored hand on Thea's arm. Gran's ancient Lincoln Continental was sitting at the curb. Nana Buruku took the wheel herself.
Dani and Thea held hands in the backseat. Dani's fingers were icy cold.
The car wound up and down streets lined with human trick-or-treaters, to a big ranch-style house with high block walls screening the backyard. Selene's house, Thea realized, seeing the name Lucna on the mailbox.
It must be where they're having the maidens' Circle Midnight meeting.
Aunt Ursula got out. Thea and Dani sat in the car with Nana Buruku. In a few minutes, Aunt Ursula came back with Blaise.
Selene, dressed in silver, and Vivienne in black, followed as far as the driveway. They looked sober and scared, not like wicked witches at all.
Blaise did. Barefoot and apparently indifferent to the cold, little bells ringing, she looked flushed and angry and proud. She opened the door with a jerk and sat down hard beside Thea, who scooted over.
"What's going on?" she said, almost out loud. "I'm missing the moon cakes, I'm missing everything. What kind of Samhain is this?"
Thea had never admired her more.
"We'll get back in time," Dani said, and her voice was steady, even if her fingers were still cold.
They're both brave, Thea thought. And me? But however much she wanted to, she couldn't get a word out through the tightness in her throat.
She half expected Nana Buruku to get on the freeway and head out toward the desert, toward Thierry's land. But instead the Lincoln headed down familiar streets and pulled up in the alley behind Grandma Harman's store.
Thea could feel Dani's questioning eyes on her. But she had no idea what was going on, and she was afraid to look Dani in the face.
"Come on," Aunt Ursula said, and shepherded them through the back door, into the shop, through the bead curtain that led to the workshop.
All the chairs for Gran's students had been pushed into a rough circle. People were sitting in them, or standing and talking quietly, but when Thea stepped through the curtain behind Nana Buruku, they all stopped and looked.
Thea's eyes moved from face to face, seeing each in a sort of disconnected, dreamlike flash. Grandma Harman, looking so grim and tired. Mother Cybele, who was the Mother of the Inner Circle, just as Gran was the Crone, looking anxious. Aradia, the Maiden, her lovely face serious and sad.
Others she recognized from two years ago, people who were so famous she knew them by their first names. Rhys, Belfana, Creon, Old Bob.
Aunt Ursula and Nana Buruku made up the last two of the nine.