Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/10705242.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      F/F
  Fandom:
      Secret_Circle_-_L._J._Smith
  Relationship:
      Cassie_Blake/Faye_Chamberlain, Cassie_Blake/Diana_Meade, Cassie_Blake/
      Faye_Chamberlain/Diana_Meade
  Character:
      Faye_Chamberlain, Cassie_Blake, Diana_Meade
  Additional Tags:
      Alternate_Universe, Smut, Interpersonal_Drama
  Collections:
      Fandom_5K_2017
  Stats:
      Published: 2017-04-25 Words: 7962
****** those hearts most entwined ******
by hazel
Summary
     She dreams that night of ocean swells and summer sand, a bright blue
     sky stretched endlessly over the horizon, the smell of lemongrass and
     mint.
Notes
     This is not the story I expected to write but it's what happened, and
     I hope you like it (I've been telling myself that it's consistent
     with the philosophy of your prompts, even if not consistent with any
     of them specifically. I hope that's true!).
     With thanks to C, S, T, and V.
The fourth thing Cassie does when they get to the Cape, straight after arriving
at the motel, unpacking her suitcase, and solemnly promising her mother that
she’d be careful in this strange state, is go to the beach.
It’s a Tuesday morning, bright and sunny, and the trees are different to the
ones back home: elms and sugar maples instead of the palm trees and sycamores
she’s familiar with. It’s a nice walk, though, past old houses and scruffy
motels, everything getting gradually nicer and larger until suddenly she turns
a corner and the Atlantic opens up before her.
Beth had made her a mixtape when she’d told her group of friends she was
spending the whole summer on the other side of the country, and she’s been
listening to it obsessively, so much that it’s no longer jarring to have Toni
Braxton fade into Code Red. There’s a dent on her Walkman’s casing and she
thinks the left side of her headphones is getting crackly, but it’s still her
favourite Christmas present from 2 years ago, and it goes with her whenever
she’s alone.
Once she makes it onto the beach, she sets out her towel and sits down to
listen to music, staring out to sea and sinking her feet into warm sand, and
there she stays until she’s feeling connected to the earth again, no longer as
adrift as flying had made her feel.
*
It’s Whitney Houston’s fault that Cassie meets the girl.
Cassie only has a copy of I Will Always Love You at all because it had been
shoved onto the end of a mixtape she’d bought out of the back of a van near
Malibu Beach for $5. But it’s a song she can’t help but pay attention to, and
so she doesn’t see the girl’s bright red towel or her long, tanned legs
stretched out, toes painted dark burgundy to match, as it turns out, her
bikini.
She ends up sprawled in the sand, her headphones tangled somehow around her
neck, only one flipflop still on her foot and the familiar feel of
embarrassment chasing up her spine.
“Get off me!” the girl demands, voice sharp.
“Oh my god, I’m so sorry!” Cassie says, scrambling off her and ending up
somehow flat on her back for a few seconds before she manages to get herself
sitting up. “I’ll—I’ll just—” Her bag is probably full of sand and her ankle
hurts, but that’s nothing compared to the glare she’s getting from this strange
girl.
“You’ll just,” the girl mocks. She’s beautiful, with tumbling dark curls and
odd yellow-brown eyes, one of the most beautiful girls Cassie has seen in her
life.
“Um,” Cassie says. “I’ll just—go?”
“You do that,” the girl retorts, and she doesn’t even blink when Cassie hisses
upon standing.
Cassie’s two steps away, limping, when the other girl arrives. This one is
equally beautiful, with a waterfall of blonde hair down past her hips, and they
obviously know each other. “Faye!” the new girl says, sounding softly
disappointed. “I saw everything—she’s really hurt!”
The black-haired girl shrugs. “She did it to herself,” she replies. “And what
do I care—she’s just an—”
“Faye!” the blonde girl repeats, urgent this time, and the black-haired girl
curls her lips but doesn’t finish her sentence.
“I’m Diana,” the blonde girl says, turning to Cassie. “And this is Faye.”
Cassie exhales. “I’m Cassie,” she says. “I’m just here on vacation.”
Diana smiles. “Oh, we are too—oh, let me help you sit down—where are you from?”
*
Faye and Diana, it turns out, are cousins from a small town on the North Shore,
up past Boston and so tiny it’s not on the maps. They’re here for the summer
because, Faye says, the boys are better down here. But Faye’s looking at Cassie
as she says this in a way that makes Cassie think maybe that’s not the real
reason.
At first, Cassie feels a little weird about hanging out with them all the time.
Faye doesn’t seem to like her much, rolls her eyes half the time when Cassie
speaks and never hesitates to get in an insult when she can. She’s the same
with Diana, though, and Diana whispers to her on their fifth day hanging out on
the beach that Faye’s got a good heart, underneath it all.
Cassie doesn’t know if that’s true, but she knows that Diana believes it to be
true, and it’s quickly becoming clear to Cassie that she’d do anything to make
Diana happy. So she tries not to take the things Faye says to heart, and after
a few more days even manages to summon the courage to fight back.
“You’re not exactly a rebel either,” she says, after Faye has spent a good five
minutes mocking a group of locals sitting 20 feet away for being conservative
sheep.
Faye blinks at her. “What?” she demands after a moment of profound silence,
nothing in the air of their little group but the smell of salt and the
incessant chirping of seagulls.
“Well,” Cassie explains. “You are wearing Calvin Klein.” She’s looking at
Faye’s cutoffs, cut so short that the hip pockets poke out at the bottom, and
the way the denim contrasts with the skin of her thighs and belly.
Faye’s stomach ripples as she sits up. “Are you mocking me?” she demands;
there’s a laugh in her voice, though, so Cassie’s feeling confident as anything
when she nods.
“Well,” Faye says eventually. “I suppose I shouldn’t dish it out if I can’t
take it.” From the corner of Cassie’s eye, she sees Diana’s mouth drop open in
surprise, but Diana doesn’t say anything.
*
“So, are you going to take us to meet your mother?” Faye asks. Cassie’s been in
Massachusetts a month, long enough that the three of them have driven up to
Boston and down to Dartmouth and are planning another trip to Provincetown.
“What?” Cassie asks absently, from where she’s leaning over Diana’s toes,
painting them pearlescent pink out of a bottle Faye had fished out of her
belongings.
Faye’s painting her own fingernails in yet another shade of red. “I was just
wondering,” she says, which is clearly a lie, Cassie knows that much by now.
Faye never says or does anything without an agenda.
“You met her when you picked me up for Dartmouth,” Cassie says.
“Yes,” Faye says. “She was nice. So you should invite us around for dinner in
your motel.”
Cassie sighs. “Sure, princess,” she agrees. Diana, searching through a whole
box of nail polish Faye had apparently brought to the Cape from their
mysterious small town, bursts out laughing, so loud and unexpected that even
Faye stops to stare and smile, just a little, just a little softer than Cassie
would have thought her capable of a week or two ago.
*
“So who are these girls?” Cassie’s mom asks, about an hour before they’re
supposed to turn up and sit around the tiny motel room dining table, awkwardly
eating takeout.
“Faye and Diana,” Cassie replies. “They’re from some small town,” she adds. “Up
further north? New something, I think.”
Cassie’s mother is very quiet for a long minute. “New Salem?” she asks,
sounding very careful.
Cassie turns and looks at her. Her mother has always been very young and very
delicate; they’ve always been very close. “I think so,” she says, slowly.
“Oh,” her mother says. “Oh, Cassie, I’m so sorry.”
“What?” Cassie asks, but her mother will only shake her head.
“I look forward to meeting them,” she says.
*
Cassie’s mother is tremulously quiet while Cassie introduces Diana and Faye.
Her hair has been pulled up into a bun, and for once she looks like the adult
in the room; Diana’s jeans jacket and Faye’s plaid shirt worn over tights are
all nice, but Cassie doesn’t exactly feel like a child in her favourite blue
dress.
“And this is my mom, Alexandra Blake,” Cassie finishes. “Uh, should we sit
down? Can I get you a drink or something?”
“Alexandra Howard, I was born,” Cassie’s mom says out of nowhere, before anyone
can move towards the two sunken grey couches. “You’ll both know my mother.”
*
The summer moves very quickly after that.
“I don’t see why we can’t go home,” Cassie says, three days after her mother
has changed her whole world in a single conversation. “And I don’t know why you
couldn’t tell me either.”
“Cassie,” her mother sighs. “Don’t be difficult. It was hard enough for me to
come back here, without having to deal with your—”
“My what?” Cassie demands. They’re packing up their motel room—not that there
is much to pack—squirrelling away bathing suits and sundresses into suitcases
and making sure nothing gets left behind. In this, at least, Cassie is being a
helpful and obedient daughter, and she’s beyond frustrated that her mother
refuses to explain things any further.
It doesn’t help that Faye and Diana have gone as well, back up to New Salem to,
as Diana put it, get things ready for them. Faye had been slightly more
helpful—which surprised everyone, Cassie thinks—and said that Cassie being one
of them changed things, but not to worry about it. She’d even hugged Cassie
before jumping into her little red car and racing off.
Cassie misses them, which is ridiculous: she’s known them less than six weeks,
and she’ll see them again in a few days. She misses them more than she misses
her friends back home in California, and that’s something she finds herself
obsessing over as she’s trying to get to sleep. She keeps dreaming about them,
too, Faye’s laughter and Diana’s smile, all bound together with silver, and
wakes up lonely. It isn’t helping her mood.
“Your attitude,” her mother says. “It’s not like you to be like this.”
“It’s not like you to move me across the country with no warning,” Cassie
retorts. “All my things are in Reseda.”
“We’ll have them shipped later,” her mother says, for the fifteenth time, voice
tinged with annoyance.
*
The road to New Salem starts off as an interstate, devolves into a four-lane
highway, and ends up as a narrow, windy road, unmarked and barely sealed,
leading over an ancient wooden bridge into what looks to Cassie like a village
out of time.
There’s an IHOP at least, or will be soon, and a few other chains; but mostly
it’s old mom-and-pop stores with mullioned windows and handpainted signage. The
houses are narrow, worn, and wooden, with steep slate roofs and carefully
tended gardens, and Cassie stares out the car window at them, wondering which
one is theirs.
But they keep driving, through the village, past a couple of schools and a
cemetery, on and on while the road gets narrower and more windy, curving
endlessly towards the south end of the island. Just when Cassie thinks they
must be heading over a cliff into the sea, they turn a corner, and the cluster
of houses she’d first seen at a distance resolves into individual houses, some
well-tended and others abandoned. They pass a turreted Victorian—Diana’s house,
if Cassie has remembered correctly—and a small Queen Anne covered in
gingerbread and whimsy, and keep driving until the very last house.
It’s—old. Older than Cassie expected, even though she’d been told the
family—her mother’s family—had lived in this spot since the 17th century, with
peeling paint and a scrubby-looking garden. Cassie’s mom parks the car
abruptly, right on the grass, and throws open the car door like she wants to
fight something. Cassie gets out a little more slowly, and by the time she’s
standing, the front door has opened and a wizened old woman is making her way
down the stairs.
“Hello, Alexandra,” the woman says.
“Hello, Mother,” Cassie’s mom replies. “Well, here we are.”
“And you must be Cassandra,” the woman says. Cassie nods, and her grandmother
takes her hands. “I’ve waited a very long time to meet you. Come inside.”
The house isn’t much nicer indoors. The wallpaper is ancient, fading in places
and warped in others, and the floorboards are dusty and well-travelled. They
make their way through a dim corridor of almost-closed doors and a staircase
leading up, through to a kitchen, and for the first time Cassie feels charmed
by this place. The room is large, with a high ceiling that rises to a peak, and
there are bunches of herbs hanging off macrame tied to the rafters. There’s a
refrigerator and a modern oven range placed incongruously next to a massive
open fireplace. Cassie almost gets the giggles staring at it, but instead takes
her grandmother’s offer of a glass of juice and sits down at the kitchen table.
“This place hasn’t changed,” her mom says.
“Of course it has,” her grandmother replies. “I bought a new refrigerator less
than ten years ago.”
Cassie doesn’t understand, but her mom bursts out laughing at that, loud and
surprised, and her grandmother joins in after a moment.
They sit at the table for a while longer, drinking their juice and exchanging
awkward small talk, before Cassie’s grandmother leads her upstairs to one of
the bedrooms. It’s enormous, with a massive four-poster bed and heavy wooden
furniture everywhere. “You can have one of the other rooms if you don’t like
this one,” her grandmother says. “But this room has a lovely view of the beach,
and I thought you might like it. This was my room when I was a girl.”
“It’s lovely,” Cassie says, even if she’s not sure that it is. “I’m sure I’ll
be fine here.”
*
The next morning, she pauses halfway down the stairs at the sound of an
argument between her grandmother and mother. “She’ll find out eventually,
Alexandra,” her grandmother says. “Better from you than anyone else.”
“I can’t” her mother replies, upset. “How am I supposed to tell her that her
father—he—”
“You’ll find a way,” her grandmother says. “You’re stronger than you think.”
“You don’t know that,” her mom says.
Fabric rustles, and when Cassie finally makes it into the kitchen, her mother
and grandmother are hugging, her mom crying on her grandmother’s shoulder.
“Mom?” Cassie asks.
Her mom sits up and shakes her head. “I’m okay. Just—this place doesn’t have
very good memories for me. But it’s okay.”
“I—okay,” Cassie says, dubious.
“Why don’t you try to find Diana?” her mother suggests. “Unpacking won’t take
long.”
Cassie blinks. “Are you trying to get me out of the house?” she demands. The
silence is long and guilty.
*
She finds Faye instead, idling in her car when Cassie ventures out of the
house. “You took long enough,” Faye says, out of the open window. “Get in.”
Cassie gets in. There are two other girls in the back seat, one short with
curly black hair and the other a curvy strawberry blonde. “Deborah and Suzan,”
Faye says idly as an introduction.
“Hi,” Cassie offers. It’s returned with a smile like a knife from the girl with
black hair.
“Really, Faye?” the other one asks.
Cassie’s the only one who sees Faye’s lips press together, annoyed, before she
says, “Really. Suzan.” The air is thrumming with tension. Cassie feels frozen
in her seat, not knowing what to do or say.
Faye’s hand comes down to rest on Cassie’s thigh, just above her knee, and the
touch breaks Cassie out of it. “Don’t panic, kitten. I don’t bite.”
Cassie stares at her, stunned. “Kitten?” she tries to ask. It comes out more as
a squeak, and she flushes.
Faye looks... odd. Surprised at herself. She might even be blushing a little,
Cassie thinks, but she bites her lip, perfectly white teeth into her perfectly
red lipstick, and shakes it off. “What of it?” she demands.
“I—um,” Cassie says.
Behind them, Suzan is cackling with laughter. Faye puts her foot down.
*
“You’re a witch, Cassie,” Faye says, bluntly. They’re in the woods, by a
stream, sitting the four of them on a bright red blanket Faye had pulled out of
her car’s tiny trunk.
“Sure,” Cassie says. “Whatever you say, Faye.”
Deborah makes a choking noise, and Faye huffs. “I’m serious.”
Cassie sits up. There isn’t even a hint of laughter in Faye’s voice. “There’s
no such thing as magic,” she says, confused.
Faye shakes her head at her. “Don’t believe everything you read. We’re all
witches—all the families on Crowhaven Road, going back generations.”
Cassie thought they’d come out here for a picnic, not so Faye could make fun of
her. “This isn’t funny,” she says.
“I’ll show you,” Faye says. She holds out her fist at Cassie’s eye level and
opens her fingers slowly. In the centre of her palm, there’s a light, bright
yellow at the edges and blinding white in the centre. “See?”
“Oh my god,” Cassie says, just before everything goes black.
*
When she wakes up, her head is resting on Faye’s thigh and Faye is staring down
at her. “You’re awake,” Faye says, looking faintly relieved. “I was about to
send Deborah off for help.”
“What happened?” Cassie asks, slowly. She thinks she remembers everything, but—
“You fainted,” Faye says. “After I showed you some magic.”
Cassie closes her eyes. “I don’t—why would you—what are you doing?”
“I’m trying to get you on my side before Diana can steal you for herself,” Faye
says. She makes it sound obvious, but when Cassie opens one eye to take a peek,
Faye looks annoyed, like she’s surprised herself. There’s a flash of silver
when Cassie closes her eye again, not wanting to get caught in the act, and she
wiggles her head a little to get more comfortable.
Then she thinks about what Faye just said. “Your side?” she demands, opening
both eyes this time and sitting up. “What do you mean, your side?”
“For control of the coven,” Faye explains. It doesn’t explain much. “I want to
be leader, so does Diana—you understand.”
“No,” Cassie says.
Faye’s explanation doesn’t really make anything much clearer. “So, you’re
hanging out with me to get my vote,” Cassie says eventually. She doesn’t know
how to describe how she feels: tight, forced inwards and compressed, like
she’ll burst if anyone touches her. She thought Faye was her friend.
Faye looks odd, uncomfortable. Suzan and Deborah have been watching this whole
conversation avidly, Cassie realises, but at a glare from Faye they walk off
into the woods. “No,” Faye says eventually. “Not just your vote. I want you on
my side.”
She reaches out to touch Cassie on her arm, careful, and that’s it. “Maybe I
want you on mine,” Cassie says, standing up and walking off in the opposite
direction from Suzan and Deborah. She doesn’t know what she’s doing or where
she’s going—it’s deeply stupid, she knows—but she knows she doesn’t want to be
around Faye, who apparently just wants to make up lies about magic and get
Cassie’s vote for some stupid club.
“Cassie, come back,” Faye calls, sounding annoyed.
“Leave me alone,” Cassie yells back, walking deeper into the woods and wishing
for solitude.
*
She finds her way to a road an hour or so later and follows it for a while. It
ends up at the cemetery she passed with her mom on the way to Crowhaven Road,
so she thinks she can figure out how to get home. In the meantime, though,
cemeteries are quiet and the day still has a few hours in it, so she walks
amongst the graves until she gets to a row of Howards, and then she studies
them carefully. The oldest there are so old the dates are hard to read, but
there’s a Jacinth who died in 1743 and a Margaret Howard Conant, born in 1683,
who died in 1756, and these are her people, her family. She wonders, suddenly,
why her mother left; and how she brought herself to go.
It’s dusk when she stands up from Jacinth’s grave, and she realises she’s spent
hours daydreaming about Jacinth’s life, in the kitchen at Number 12 as it would
have been three centuries ago, herbs in the garden outside and pheasants
hanging from the rafters, the smell of cracked wheat and freshly-churned
butter; a blonde woman laughing at her with Faye’s eyes while she sits, hemming
handkerchiefs and darning stockings.
She’d been so deep in the daydream it had almost felt real, which has happened
to her before but not often enough that she’s used to it, and she’s surprised
that the air has cooled and the stars are beginning to show. The walk back to
Crowhaven Road would have been long enough in sunlight but in twilight it’s an
odd walk, unlit by anything but the stars and moon and the last dying rays of
the day, sinking into the ocean.
Faye’s in the kitchen when she gets home, talking quietly with Cassie’s
grandmother with red eyes and a large mug of steaming pale yellow tea in front
of her. “You’re young yet, and impulsive, I think,” Cassie’s grandmother is
saying as Cassie enters the room.
“What are you doing here?” Cassie asks Faye.
Faye’s pupils widen. “You ran off into the woods and I couldn’t find you!”
“You obviously didn’t look very hard,” Cassie retorts.
“I tried everything,” Faye snaps back. “I even asked Melanie.”
Cassie frowns. “Who’s Melanie?”
Faye shakes her head. “One of us. But Diana’s friend. That’s not important. But
you hid from all of us—don’t you see? This proves it—that you’re a—”
“It’s time for you to go home now, Faye,” Cassie’s grandmother says firmly.
“We’ll take it from here.”
Faye’s obviously unhappy about it, but she goes, letting the kitchen door slam
a little behind her. “That girl,” Cassie’s grandmother sighs. “Now, where were
we?”
“I don’t know,” Cassie says.
*
It turns out that magic is real.
It turns out that there is magic in everything, magic in the sand and the sea
and the sky, magic in the grass that grows in the cracks of the driveway and
the insects buzzing out near the borage, magic in the wood of the kitchen table
and the slate of the kitchen floor, magic in life and death and everything in
between, and if she concentrates hard Cassie can hear it.
“We’re a strong family,” her grandmother says.
“Mom?” Cassie demands, surprised.
Her grandmother closes her eyes and sighs. “Your mother—she was very young when
she had you. Very young. I tried to protect her and I failed. And, yes, your
mother. It would have gone easier for her if she hadn’t been as strong, I
think.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Cassie says. Her grandmother talks in riddles
half the time; the other half, it’s in shortcuts, the words you use amongst
people who already know what you’re talking about. It makes conversations
difficult.
Her grandmother sighs again. “She was very young and very powerful and very
vulnerable—your grandfather had just died, or he would have put a stop to it
right away—and he used that, your father.”
“But who is he?” Cassie asks.
“A dead man,” her grandmother answers, and then changes the subject with such
finality that Cassie is silent through the next five minutes of confusing
explanations about dreams.
They’ve moved on to sensing magic when Cassie has a revelation. “Oh, you mean
like the silver cords I keep seeing?”
“Silver cords?” her grandmother demands. “Where? Who?”
Cassie stares at her. “Me and Faye. And Diana. Me and Diana. I don’t see any
between Faye and Diana.”
“Oh my good Lord,” her grandmother says faintly.
“What? What is it?” Cassie asks, because her grandmother looks old and shocked.
“The silver cord—well. I said I’d explain things and I will. Let me just—” she
goes over to the fireplace and prods at a brick until it comes loose, and pulls
out an object wrapped in cloth. “This is the family Book of Shadows. I suppose
you’d call it a grimoire. But it’s our family history, all the knowledge we’ve
gained and the secrets we’ve held. I think there’s something about silver cords
near the beginning.”
The book is heavy, with gossamer-thin pages covered in spidery writing. Cassie
turns each leaf carefully, and on the seventh page she finds a few lines: & it
is ſaid that thoſe hearts moſte entwined are thoſe bound by the ſilver cord,
the brighteſt of which can be ſeen by all who look, & that all things alſo are
linked thus though not as ſtrongly & that the ſilver cord remains even amongſt
thoſe ſeparated by age or race or creed or ſex & that it cares not for the good
order of things but only for the true bonds of hearts felt deeply; it is ſaid
alſo that Jacinth Howard and Kate Merritt felt the ſilver cord between them,
though it did not bind them in fleſh but only in ſpirit.
“Oh,” Cassie says finally.
“Love is what it will be,” her grandmother says. “You don’t have to figure it
all out yet. But—be careful.”
“Yes,” Cassie says.
*
Diana shows up just after breakfast the next morning, while Cassie’s still
slumped at the kitchen table in her dressing gown, clutching a large mug of
coffee and pondering her dreams. “Are you okay?” she asks.
Cassie stares at her. Now that she knows to look for it, the silver cord is
thrumming between them, alive and strong and insistent. “We’re witches,” is
what comes out of her mouth.
Diana drops into a chair. “I thought Faye might have told you. She’s so—I had a
plan.”
“Um,” Cassie says. “To get me on your side?” She regrets it as soon as she’s
said it; she can’t even imagine Diana plotting like that.
Diana reaches out and takes her hands. “Of course not. But I wanted to make
sure you were okay, and you’re not.”
“It’s the silver cords that are weirder, I think,” Cassie admits.
Diana’s eyes widen. “You see it too?” she asks. “Oh! I mean, I broke up with
Adam, but I wasn’t sure—and of course I didn’t think you knew anything about
it—and I’ve never—wait, you said cords.”
Cassie nods. “I—you and me. And me and Faye. I’m not sure about you and Faye,
but—you’d know, maybe?”
Diana’s hands tighten around Cassie’s own. “You and Faye too? Oh.”
She doesn’t say anything else, but they’re still sitting there, both blushing
faintly, when Faye walks in as though she owns the place.
“What are you doing here?” she demands of Diana.
Diana looks up at her. “I wanted to see how Cassie was. You were worried about
her last night.”
“No, I wasn’t,” Faye claims. It’s so obvious a lie that Cassie disentangles her
hands from Diana’s, so she can turn around in her chair and stare at Faye more
effectively. “Shut up,” Faye instructs them both.
“You shut up,” Cassie says, feeling about 12 and out of her depth. It’s one
thing to think the girls you met on the beach are the most beautiful girls in
the world; it’s quite another thing to have your grandmother know that you love
them. And Cassie’s still not sure what love is, or how it feels; all she knows
is that she wants to hold both their hands at once.
*
Cassie drives herself to her first day of school, Faye and Diana having spent a
good thirty minutes the night before bickering pointlessly about it. It makes
more sense, now that Cassie’s met everyone her age on Crowhaven Road, why Faye
and Diana are at loggerheads so much; Diana’s clearly the good girl, the good
example, with her studious and polite friends, and Faye’s the wild child, not
quite yet an object lesson.
It makes even more sense now that she’s having nightly dreams in which she’s
dressed in homespun wool and Kate has Diana’s hair and Faye’s eyes and fine
linen undergarments that Cassie likes to peel off her, one ribbon at a time.
She doesn’t know how a soul would be split, and the family Book of Shadows is
no help to her at all, but it has happened, and Faye and Diana are separate
people, whole people, individuals unto themselves—and collectively, Cassie’s
soulmate. Soulmates. It’s confusing.
Hardly anyone is at New Salem High School when she gets there, and the girl she
asks for directions to the office looks curious but distant. Perhaps she’d seen
Cassie with Faye, last week when Faye took her for ice-cream, or with Diana,
two days before shopping for shoes. Everyone has explained Crowhaven Road to
her repeatedly.
Faye arrives at the office just as Cassie’s leaving. “You’d already left when I
went to pick you up,” she says. She sounds like she doesn’t care in the
slightest, but if that were true she wouldn’t be here.
“You and Diana were being stupid,” Cassie says. “I know how to drive.”
“I’m getting that,” Faye says. “But I’ll walk you to your locker. I need to
know where it is anyway.”
Cassie shrugs. “Sure. Do you want to carry my books, too?”
Faye flushes at that, but grabs Cassie’s notebooks and backpack anyway, like a
dare and a challenge, and stalks off in her red heels while Cassie follows her,
feeling something like a puppy. “We’re in Creative Writing together,” she
informs Cassie, once Cassie’s got her locker open and is stuffing her books
into it haphazardly. “I’ll see you there.”
“I—okay,” Cassie says. It feels like everyone in the hallway is staring at her,
and she hurries off in what she hopes is the right direction for her first
class, head down and heart racing. It’s annoying how much Faye gets to her, and
how little she seems to get to Faye in return.
*
Creative writing is okay; the teacher makes them write a poem, and Cassie finds
herself writing about dark hair and long legs, yellow eyes and a knife-edged
smile and spun wheat in the clear blue sky and girls in white dresses laughing.
Afterwards, Faye grabs her work off her and stands there, reading it. Her
eyebrows raise when she gets to the part about soft touches and a flush rises
on her neck; Cassie stares at it, biting her lip.
“I’ll keep this,” Faye says eventually, folding the paper into eighths and
tucking it into her jeans pocket. “Let’s go for a walk.”
“I have class!” Cassie says.
Faye shrugs. “You’ll pass, don’t worry.” Her hand is firm around Cassie’s
wrist, leading her down the hallway. Cassie twists her hand, just enough to
link their fingers together—being around Faye always makes her feel braver—and
Faye’s fingers squeeze a little tighter.
Faye leads her out of the building and across the fields, to an old block with
busted-out windows and DO NOT ENTER tape on all the doorways. “This was the
science blocks—until Chris and Doug had an accident. Now we’re the only ones
who come here.”
“I’m meant to be in class,” Cassie repeats.
Faye rolls her eyes. “And I told you not to worry about it.” She tugs on
Cassie’s hand, and Cassie stumbles forward, up the steps, through a dirty
hallway, and into an abandoned chemistry lab, complete with bunsen burners and
a periodic table on the wall. Cassie gets a little distracted by the room,
imagining her mother sitting on the second bench from the back, wearing bell-
bottomed jeans with her hair in a long braid, and Faye tugs on her hand again.
This time, Cassie stumbles forward, catching herself with her other hand on
Faye’s hip. They’re pressed together from their stomachs down, Faye’s thighs
warm where they’re touching Cassie’s through their jeans. Cassie can’t bring
herself to remove her hand from Faye’s hip, so she looks up at Faye instead.
“Have you ever been kissed before?” Faye asks. She’s staring at Cassie, only a
couple of inches taller—Cassie doesn’t know what she’s done with her shoes—and
her breath is warm and her chest is rising and falling with each breath and
Cassie can feel the silver cord humming between them.
“Yes,” Cassie lies. “Have you?” Being around Faye always makes her want to be
braver.
Faye grins then, a real one, wide and charming and charmed. “God, you’re cute,”
she says. “We’re going to have so much fun, you and I.”
“Are we?” Cassie retorts, and that’s when Faye kisses her.
*
They’re making out on a lab table when Diana comes in. Faye’s still
standing—just, Cassie thinks with satisfaction—and Cassie’s propped up on one
elbow, her ass on the edge of the table and her legs wrapped around Faye’s
waist. She’s managed to untuck Faye’s blouse and is stroking her fingers along
the smooth skin of Faye’s back; there’s a spot that seems to consistently make
Faye shudder and kiss Cassie harder.
“Oh,” Diana says. She sounds bewildered, and Cassie pulls away from Faye and
prods at her until she can sit up.
“Diana?” Cassie asks.
“I saw you two out of my History class window.”
Faye shrugs. “What of it?”
“I just—it’s her first day, Faye, you’re hardly—and you’re at school!” Diana
looks genuinely frustrated—and flustered—she’s flushed, and she keeps looking
between Faye’s untucked blouse and Cassie’s neck.
“So?” Faye demands, staring at her. “What do you—you’re jealous!” She bursts
out laughing and Diana’s flush deepens into true embarrassment.
Cassie can’t let Diana be hurt, not by this. “You shouldn’t be,” she says.
Both of them turn to look at her. It’s odd, being the focus of both of them at
once. Cassie likes it. “She shouldn’t be jealous,” she repeats. “I want—” Her
courage fails her and she can’t finish the sentence, but she thinks they
understand.
“Oh,” Diana says, hushed. “But you two—”
Cassie shrugs. “Faye makes me brave,” she says.
“Oh,” Diana says again, stepping forward; Faye hasn’t moved away very far, and
she still has two fingers in the belt loop of Cassie’s jeans. “But then I—”
Cassie shakes her head. “You make me want to be kind,” she explains. “But I
don’t want you out of kindness. And I—I don’t know very much about any of this,
but I know what I want.”
“Oh,” Diana says, finally, and when they kiss it’s like an ocean swelling in
Cassie’s mind, nothing like the crackling heat of touching Faye.
*
Diana’s father works a lot—he’s a civil litigator—and Diana has apparently been
running the household since she was about 10. So it’s no trouble convincing him
that Cassie should stay over a couple of nights a week, for reasons that have
everything to do with homework and good study habits, and nothing at all to do
with the way she and Cassie curl up in bed together, kissing endlessly by the
dim light of Diana’s Tiffany lamp.
It’s more trouble convincing Cassie’s mom and grandmother that this should
happen, but then: they know what’s going on.
Diana’s two close friends are the infamous Melanie of the finding-hidden-things
knowledge, and Laurel, who likes plants and would, if she lived in California,
dress exclusively in hemp-based products and wear flowers in her hair.
Laurel, Cassie thinks, should spend more time with Chris and Doug: they’re fond
of hemp-based products too. But the schism in the teenagers of Crowhaven Road
dates back to early childhood, Faye confesses, and one particular teacher in
grade school who had loved Diana’s golden-haired and green-eyed obedience, and
been frustratingly impatient with Faye’s piercing questions and habit of
throwing things when annoyed.
“You threw things?” Cassie asks, unimpressed.
“She did,” Diana confirms. They’re trying something new today, all three of
them up in Faye’s bedroom while her mother rests in her suite on the floor
below.
“I was an angry child,” Faye muses.
Cassie bursts out laughing. “So, nothing’s changed?”
Faye glares at her, but there’s a smile in it, plus a little ruefulness. “Not
really.”
“You weren’t the only angry kid, Faye,” Diana says. It sounds a little like a
confession; when Cassie turns to look at her, she’s staring fixedly at the two
black kittens tumbling over each other on Faye’s dressing table.
“You?” Faye asks, incredulous.
Diana shakes her head. “I was thinking about Nick, actually. And Adam. And
Deborah.”
Nick is tall and dark and classically handsome, with eyes like a shark. He’d
terrified Cassie for about five minutes after they met, but then Suzan had
started shrieking about Faye’s much shorter fingernails and he’d burst out
laughing and fallen off his chair, which broke the mystery. She can see why
Diana thinks he’s angry, though: he carries it like a shield.
“Adam?” Faye asks, curiosity evident in her voice.
“Yes,” Diana confirms. “He just... controls it.”
“Huh,” Faye says.
Cassie does not know why they’re talking about Diana’s ex-boyfriend, but it
seems to be helping Diana and Faye actually talk to each other about thoughts
they’ve had in their heads, rather than just arguing endlessly because Faye
can’t let anyone else win and Diana, despite appearances, can’t let anything
go. “So you guys have been fighting for a decade because of your second-grade
teacher,” she asks.
Faye and Diana look at each other. “Well, not just that,” Faye admits. “Magic
makes us special, and I think we should use that. Little Miss Princess over
here has too many morals.”
“I don’t think putting glamours on pizza boys so they throw their job over to
make out with you is particularly special,” Diana snaps back.
Cassie obviously overrated their chances of not fighting. Also, gross. “You
made pizza delivery guys quit their jobs to make out with you?” she demands.
Faye flushes. “They weren’t hurt by it,” she says. “And it wouldn’t have worked
if they hadn’t been into it—it only builds on attraction that’s already there.
It just... lowers inhibitions.”
“I’ll never speak to you again if you ever use it on me,” Cassie says. The more
she thinks about it, the more grossed-out she is.
Faye looks truly outraged. “I wouldn’t!”
“Sure,” Cassie says. “I’m going home,” she adds, surprising herself as she says
it. She’s not sure exactly what about it troubles her so much. It’s not just
jealousy, she doesn’t think, although she can’t stand to think of anyone else
touching Faye the way she does, the way Diana is beginning to. But she knows
she wants to go home and think about it, somewhere she won’t be distracted by
Faye’s lips and Diana’s skin. “You guys keep talking, I—I’m not feeling well.”
“Cassie,” Faye pleads. “I’m sorry.”
She turns at the doorway. “I know. And I trust you, but I think you guys need
to talk, and I need to think.”
*
She goes to sleep that night thinking of how Faye hasn’t scared her since those
first few days, how she’d begun to think the other kids at school were
ridiculous when they stared at Faye with wary eyes, how even the teachers are
careful around her. But she’s never been anything less than gentle with Cassie
since this started between them.
She thinks also about Diana, how kind and honest she is, and how bold she is
when she and Cassie are alone, how bold she’s getting around Faye too, and how
much fun that is to watch. What isn’t so obvious is what Faye and Diana give
each other, and that’s something Cassie’s coming to realise she needs to know.
She can’t spend the rest of her life tugged between them like a toy they’re
fighting over.
*
She dreams that night of ocean swells and summer sand, a bright blue sky
stretched endlessly over the horizon, the smell of lemongrass and mint. Faye’s
there, and Diana too, and the silver cord wraps around the three of them,
infinitely strong. While they sit there, the tide comes in, flicker-flashes of
time passing as the sea moves closer and closer to their feet. It brings
stormclouds with it, rolling grey and violent, tearing up the surf into white
peaks. There’s thunder in the distance and the scent of electricity, but they
don’t move. She knows they’re safe as long as they stay together.
She wakes up with a gasp and goes to the kitchen. It’s three in the morning,
maybe, but her grandmother is sitting there anyway, hair loose and wild and her
ancient blue dressing gown wrapped around her. “You couldn’t sleep?” her
grandmother asks.
“I had a nightmare,” Cassie admits. “Well, sort of. A dream?”
“Ahh,” her grandmother says. “You’ve inherited the family Gift. I thought so.”
It’s both too early and too late for this. “There was a storm coming, in my
dream.”
Her grandmother laughs. “Subtlety is overrated as you get the hang of it.”
Cassie shakes her head. “I don’t understand.”
“We dream the future, our line. Sometimes. And it’s never very clear—emotions
more than actions, for most of us,” her grandmother attempts to explain.
“We—dream the future,” Cassie repeats.
“There are several accounts in the Book,” her grandmother says.
“I dream the future,” Cassie says.
“You do,” her grandmother confirms. “What were you dreaming about?”
“Me and Diana and Faye,” Cassie says. “I thought it was just—we were fighting,
yesterday.”
Her grandmother closes her eyes. “That girl,” she sighs. Cassie isn’t sure
which one of them her grandmother is talking about. “Well, it may have been
that strong emotion opened your mind to it—it’s always been that way for me.
Your mother too.”
“Mom?” Cassie asks, stunned.
“You can ask her about it in the morning,” her grandmother says. “For now, take
the Book of Shadows, drink a glass of milk, and go back to bed.”
Cassie has never been this aggressively parented in her life. She obeys.
*
The Book of Shadows does contain a good half-dozen personal accounts of dreams
that came true. The nicest one is a young woman named Nora, writing in 1877
about a series of dreams about blossoming flowers, that had ended up with her
finally getting pregnant to her husband: we are blessed with a fine daughter
who we have named Violet. Cassie consults the family tree, and Violet is her
two-times-great grandmother.
It has very little in the way of guidance about analysing the things; a man
named Joseph wrote in the mid-18th century about it becoming easier with time
to know what dreams were trying to say. He’d tacked that on to a full page of
writing about some lost crystal skull, though, so Cassie isn’t sure whether to
have much faith in his words.
At any rate, her grandmother is adamant that a storm means that difficulties
are coming, and that she, Diana, and Faye will have to stick together like glue
to make it through. Her mother, faced with a discussion about dream
interpretation over breakfast, reluctantly agrees; it’s a side of her mother
Cassie has never seen before.
“I had to get out of here for my own sanity,” she admits over coffee. “Your
father almost destroyed this place.”
“Who was he?” Cassie asks.
Her mother shakes her head. “That isn’t important. It’s more important that
he’s gone.”
Her grandmother purses her lips but doesn’t say anything, and Cassie knows,
suddenly and absolutely, what the coming storm is about.
*
She goes to Diana’s house later that morning, after spending a ridiculous
amount of time choosing a cardigan. In the end, she’s gone with a blue Fair
Isle pattern, worn over a skirt short enough that Faye had dragged her into the
janitor’s closet at school last time she wore it. She can touch the hem with
the tips of her fingers, and it makes her feel powerful.
Faye’s car is in the driveway. She only lives a few houses away but still
drives; she’d confessed to Diana and Cassie that it’s the only gift her mother
has picked out for her in years. Diana’s father is bound to be at work, and the
door’s unlocked, so Cassie lets herself in and climbs the stairs to Diana’s
room, from which quiet sounds can be heard downstairs.
They’re kissing, slow and careful, when she opens the door; Diana’s hands
caught up in Faye’s hair, Faye’s fingers—always the bolder—stroking down
Diana’s spine, one-two-three.
“Oh,” Cassie says, dumbstruck. They’re beautiful, her girls, and beautiful
together; she wants to watch almost as much as she wants to touch.
“Faye stayed over,” Diana says. “We talked.”
“Oh,” Cassie repeats. They’ve obviously done a lot more than talk. It isn’t
jealousy in her stomach, not for this, but envy, she thinks; and a little
regret, that she was dreaming of storms and comfort while Faye and Diana
were—talking.
Faye grins at her. “I love that skirt,” she says. “Why don’t you come over
here?”
Cassie does, and they tug her down to the bed to kiss and be kissed, slow at
first and then more frantic, until Faye’s unbuttoning her cardigan and Diana’s
removing it one arm at a time, throwing it off the bed somewhere and stroking
her fingers under the waistband of Cassie’s skirt. Cassie’s got one hand in
Faye’s hair and the other under her shirt, thumb stroking the line of her
underwire while Faye gasps into her mouth. Diana, Cassie’s coming to
understand, loves to watch; whenever Cassie catches her eye, she’s breathing
heavily.
The room feels brushed with silver, electric static and alive, and Cassie wants
this, wants to let herself have this, even if nothing is resolved and there’s
change looming in the air.
Faye is careful when she pulls down Cassie’s underwear, and Cassie lifts her
hips up to let her. It’s weird and new, having someone look at her like this,
but it’s nice. It makes Cassie feel powerful, so she lets her thighs fall open,
and Faye moves quick as lightning on top of her, nipping at her throat while
her fingers roam.
Cassie understands why Nick laughed so hard at Faye’s short fingernails now.
Diana’s still watching, eyes wide and pupils blown; her dressing gown is open
and her fingers are between her own thighs. She’s silent where Faye is not,
bottom lip held tight between her teeth while Cassie gasps through the first
touch of Faye’s tongue to her clit. Cassie can’t look away.
Faye’s got two fingers in her now, and Cassie’s rocking into it; she can’t get
herself off half the time, but it feels like she’ll go off like an explosion
any second, like all it will take is one last—and she’s there, her whole body
arching with it, feeling like the whole universe has contracted into this one
second.
When she opens her eyes, Faye is laughing at her, smug and relaxed. Cassie tugs
her down and kisses her, licks into her mouth and fumbles her way into Faye’s
tiny sleep shorts until Faye’s a shuddering mess too.
“I love you,” Cassie whispers into the space between them afterwards. “And I
want you on my side too.” Diana’s curled up behind Faye, asleep, and that’s
less new for the two of them than either will admit, Cassie can tell.
“Not without Diana,” Faye whispers back, sounding a mixture of determined and
resigned.
Cassie sighs. “Yes, but—” Faye’s looking away now, staring out past her through
Diana’s bedroom window to the sea. “Faye,” Cassie says, as firm and resolute as
she can, and she can tell by the tug of the silver cord that Faye’s paying
attention even if she doesn’t show it. “Not without you, either.”
THE END
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