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.They didn't know what the other John was planning."We knew by then the babies were coming soon, and that was another reason to celebrate.But it was in October that some of the older women started to worry.The girls were all so pale and the pregnancies seemed to take so much out of them.Poor Carmen Henderson was flesh and bones except for her belly.That looked like she was carrying twin elephants.There wasn't much celebrating at Samhain; the girls were all too sick."And then on November third, it started.Your uncle Nicholas, Deborah, the one you never knew, called me to come to his wife's bedside.1 helped Sharon have little Nick, your cousin.He was a fighter from the first minute; I'll never forget how he squalled.But there was something else, something I'd never seen in a baby's eyes, and I went home thinking about it.There was a power there I'd never seen before."And two days later it happened again.Elizabeth Conant had a baby boy, with hair like Bacchus's wine and eyes like the sea.That baby looked at me, and I could feel his power.""Adam," Cassie whispered."That's right.Three days later Sophie Burke went into labor-her that kept her own name even when she married.Her baby, Melanie, was like the others.She looked two weeks old when she was brand-new, and she saw me as clearly as I saw her."The strangest ones born were Diana and Faye.Their mothers were sisters and they had their babies at the same moment, in two separate houses.One baby was bright like sunlight and the other one was dark as midnight, but those two were connected somehow.You could tell even at that age."Cassie thought of Diana and a pang went through her, but she pushed it away and went on listening.Her grandmother's voice seemed to be getting weaker."Poor little things.it wasn't their fault.It isn't your fault," the old woman said, focusing suddenly on Deborah and Cassie."Nobody can blame you.But by December third, eleven babies had been born, and they were all strange.Their mothers didn't want to admit it, but by January there was no way to deny it.Those tiny babies could call on the Powers, and they could scare you if they didn't get what they wanted.""I knew," Cassie whispered."I knew it was too weird for all of those kids to born within one month.I knew.""Their parents knew, too, but they didn't know what it meant.It was Adam's father, I think, who put it all together for them.Eleven babies, he said-he guessed that with one more that made a coven.And who was the one more? Why, the man who'd arranged for all those babies to be born, the man who was going to lead them.Black John had come back to make the strongest Circle this country had ever seen-not from this generation, but from the next, Adam's father said.From the infants."Nobody believed the story at first.Some parents were scared, and some were just plain stupid.And some didn't see how Black John could come back from the dead after all those years.That's one mystery that hasn't been solved yet."But gradually some of the group were convinced.Nick's father, who'd lost his own fiancee, seen her married off to his younger brother-he listened.And Mary Meade, Diana's mother; she was as smart as she was pretty.Even Faye's father, Grant Chamberlain.he was a cold man, but he knew his infant daughter could set the curtains on fire without touching them, and he knew that wasn't right.They got some of the others talked around, and one cold night, the first of February, the bunch of them set off to talk to him about it."* * *SIXTEENCassie's grandmother shook her head."To talk! If they'd come to us, to the older women, we might have warned them.Me and Laurel's grandma, and Adam's grandma, and Melanie's great-aunt Constance-we could have told them a few things, maybe saved them.But they went alone, without telling anyone.On Imbolc, February first, more than half the group that he had put together went to challenge him.And out of that group, not one came back."Tears were running slowly down the seamed old cheeks."So you see, it was the brave ones, the strong ones that went and died.The ones that are left are the ones too scared or too stupid to see the danger-I'm sorry, Deborah, but it's true." Cassie remembered that both Deborah's parents were alive [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]