Adam frowned sympathetically. "That could be a problem. But my guess is the hunters do want to be found, because they want us to go to them." Then his eyes filled with remorse. "There's a reason they're keeping Scarlett alive, Cassie. Otherwise they would have killed her outright.
We will find her. I promise."
Cassie knew Adam was right. She kissed him softly on the cheek. "I don't know how I'd get through this without you."
"Luckily you don't have to," he said, as he went in for a kiss. For just a moment, the world felt right again.
After school that afternoon, the Circle gathered under the bleachers just before the track-meet finals were set to begin. But Faye was nowhere to be found. Searching the bleachers for her, Cassie and Laurel weren't surprised to find that she wasn't alone.
Crowds had filled in the bleachers on all sides of Faye and Max, but they hadn't noticed. Max was kissing her neck as Faye ran her nails down the length of his torso and tugged at his jeans like a hungry animal.
"So much for her laying off Max," Laurel said. "But I guess once the love spell was done, it was done." Cassie nodded. "But Faye's not under a spell, so what's her excuse?"
"She's Faye," Laurel said.
Cassie noticed Portia walking toward them, or more like marching toward them, wearing a high-collared blouse that was the same shade as her straw-colored hair.
"Here comes trouble," Cassie said.
"Will you tell your disgusting friend to go get a room?" Portia shouted. "This is a track meet, not an R-rated movie."
Laurel giggled. "Portia's right. I think they might be scaring the children."
She turned to Cassie. "Do you want to go douse them with some ice water, or should I?"
Portia half-smiled. "Thank you, Laurel. I always knew you were the most reasonable one in your little clique." Then glancing at Cassie, Portia added, "Though the bar's been set pretty low."
"I'll take care of it," Cassie said, already walking away.
She'd take any excuse to escape Portia.
Laurel and Portia continued talking for a few minutes while Cassie did her best to pry Faye away from Max.
"No," Max whined. "Where are you taking her?" All the coolness had been sucked out of him.
"Say good-bye, Max," Cassie insisted. "Faye has to go now."
Faye struggled to cop one last feel of him before being hauled away. She grazed her fingers across his chiseled face. "Be a good boy and stay here," she said. "And later you'll get a reward."
Max's strong features softened with boyish delight. "Do you promise?" he said.
Faye blew a kiss in response as Cassie dragged her down below the bleachers.
Once they were safely away from him, Cassie shook her head. "I can hardly believe that's the same Max." Faye smiled. "If you saw him with his shirt off, you'd believe it."
Below the bleachers, the Circle was almost done preparing the locator spell. Suzan and Sean stuck candles into the ground: one north, one south, one east, and one west. Nick ignited the wicks with his brass Zippo.
Melanie tapped Cassie on the shoulder. "Excuse me," she said, bumping her to the side. "I've got censers to light."
"Won't they smell the incense?" Cassie asked, referring to the bleacher crowd above.
"No," Melanie replied, while clearing the ground's energy.
"It's only jasmine. If anything, they'll think someone's smoking something."
"Is everybody ready to begin?" Diana called out, eyeing Cassie.
She'd taken Cassie aside after chemistry class to hash out what happened at their morning meeting. She tried to explain her position, that she wished to save Scarlett as much as Cassie did, but she had to balance that wish with her responsibility to the Circle. It isn't personal, she'd said.
Cassie assured Diana she understood. But it was personal.
That's what nobody seemed to recognize. To Cassie this was all very personal.
The sound of their schoolmates cheering above them indicated the track meet had begun.
"We're ready as we'll ever be," Laurel said.
The group sat in a circle surrounding the candles as Diana instructed them to do. Then Diana placed a goblet of water within the circle.
"Everyone invoke the element of Water," she said.
Cassie gazed into the goblet, imagining it contained the whole ocean, so blue and cold and deep that if she tried to stick her fingers inside it to reach its bottom, she never would.
"Power of Water, I beseech you," Diana said. And then, together as a group, the Circle softly repeated the incantation four times.
That which is lost shall now be found
Hiding places come unbound
They stared into the goblet as Diana called out, "Let the water show the location of Scarlett."
At first there was nothing, just some ordinary water pooled in a fancy glass. The crowd above their heads cheered and rose to their feet, and the water stirred. It took a few seconds for it to go still again, but when it did, Cassie noticed her own reflection in the water becoming more pronounced. The shape of her own face, her round eyes and pouting mouth, sharpened to a pristine clarity. How frightened she looked to herself, how desperate. But soon that faded away and a new image emerged, with equal clarity. It was a broken-down house - the same house as the one in her dream, except now she could really see it, not just sense it.
It was a rickety beach cottage, in what Cassie recognized as the classic Cape Cod style. It sat near the end of a long, desolate, sandy lane, with a large body of water on one side and tidal marshes on the other.
I know this place, Cassie thought, but in the next moment, the image transformed into something else.
What was it?
The image was forming slowly, but she could swear it was a loaf of bread. Then the loaf separated into slices.
Maybe she was just hungry, because as quickly as that image formed, it re-shaped into something else: It was the face of a man who appeared to be from the 1800s. He had bushy eyebrows and a thick moustache and wore a high collar. Cassie was sure she recognized this man, too, but from where?
And then, finally, the image changed one last time - to a number. It flashed for only a second, almost too quickly to catch, but it was 48. It appeared to Cassie like a numbered white ball plucked from a lottery. Then the water blackened and became still.
"I think Scarlett's in Cape Cod," Cassie said, looking to the others for confirmation.
"Yes," Adam agreed. "In the town of Sandwich. It's in the northwest corner of the Cape."