"Back atcha," Mary K. said, and then her friend Jaycee ran up to the car, bundled in a Day-Glow-pink ski jacket

"Mary K.," she cried excitedly, tapping the window. "You are not going to believe who Diane D'Alessio is going out with!”

"Just a sec," Mary K. told her. She turned back to me. “I'll talk to you later, okay?"

"Yep," I told her.

Mary K. and Jaycee hurried across the icy parking lot toward school. I grabbed my backpack and followed them.

Inside the redbrick building, I headed to the basement stairs, where our coven usually hung out on cold mornings. Jenna and Sharon were already there, along with Ethan. Matt, Jenna's ex, was nowhere to be seen, and neither was Robbie.

"Hey," I said.

Sharon looked up at me, relief evident in her expression. "Morgan! Are you all right? Robbie told us about Sunday night."

I sat down on the step beside Jenna. "Yeah, I'm okay. I guess."

Ethan shook his head. "That totally blew me away. I can't believe I missed all the signs that Cal was lethal."

"We all missed them," Sharon said, shuddering. Ethan put his arm around her shoulders.

Jenna tucked a strand of her pale blond hair behind her ear. "I feel so stupid. Like we were all taken in by a con artist or something. That the whole thing was just part of a plot to get at you."

"It's strange, but I can't help feeling that a lot of what he was doing was sincere," I said thoughtfully. Then I caught myself, wondering if I had a total victim personality or what. "Of course, he seemed pretty sincere about trying to kill me, too," I added briskly. "So now we know. Wicca definitely has a dark side, and Cal and Selene were practicing it."

Ethan stood up and shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. "You know, I like the part of Wicca that's about connecting with nature, understanding yourself. But this dark stuff scares me."

"I don't think any of us realized what we might be getting into when Cal started Cirrus," I said. "Now I guess we have to decide whether we want to go on with it."

"Did you hear that Hunter wants to lead the coven?" Jenna asked.

I nodded. "He told me last night. How do you all feel about it?"

"Weird," Jenna said. "I mean, we started with Cal. Being in the coven is so much connected with him for me. I don't know what it will be like. Plus it seems weird that Hunter would even want to lead us. He doesn't know us."

"He's worried about us being exposed to dark magick, and he wants to make sure no one gets hurt. That's what he said, anyway," Sharon said. She smiled. "In his sexy English accent."

"Hey!" Ethan protested. "What about my sexy accent?"

"He does seem to know what he's talking about," Matt said. "He's been doing this a lot longer than we have. I know he's not much older than we are, but he seems. . I don't know. . more grown-up or something."

"It's just the accent," Ethan said, poking Sharon in the ribs. "It makes him seem older."

"Cut it out." Sharon wiggled away, laughing.

"You're right," I admitted. Hunter did seem older than his years. It probably had to do with all he'd been through. He'd had to grow up fast.

"I loved Cal's circles," Sharon said wistfully. "He was totally laid-back but at the same time encouraging."

"That last circle with him, I felt real magick," Jenna agreed. "Still, it might be interesting to see how Hunter handles things. For variety." The first bell rang, and she got to her feet "All I know is, I'm not joining Sky's coven," she said. We all knew what she meant. Along with Bree, Raven Meltzer also belonged to Sky's coven. Raven had tried to seduce Matt, and Matt had pretty much gone for it. Hence the end of the four-year romance between Matt and Jenna.

Sharon said, "I think we ought to give him a chance."

"Yeah," Ethan said. "If we hate it, we can just quit."

For a moment, I envied them. If they didn't enjoy Wicca, they could drop it, the way you drop a boring after-school activity. I didn't have that option. Wicca had chosen me as much as I'd chosen it.

I'd hoped to get to Hunter and Sky's place early so that I could talk to Hunter about what I'd sensed the night before, but in the dark I missed the turn to his street and was out of Widow's Vale completely before I figured it out. By the time I pulled up in front of the house, it was already after seven, and everybody else's cars were parked against the curb. I wedged Das Boot in between Robbie's Beetle and Jenna's Corolla and started up the narrow path.

Hunter must have sensed me coming before I reached the porch. The front door opened, framing him in warm golden light I caught my breath—it was so similar to the image of him in my dream, bathed in light pushing back the darkness. I blinked to shake off the image. He watched me from the doorway, looking like one of those ads for an après-ski drink, and I suddenly felt self-conscious, as if I were about to slip and fall facedown on the walk.

"Welcome," he said.

"Morganita." Robbie came up behind him. "You've got to check this place out. It's very cool."

"I've been here before," I mumbled, oddly flustered.

Hunter stood aside to let me pass, and I walked into the living room. Sharon and Ethan were sharing an ottoman, leaning companionably against each other's backs. Jenna and Matt were in the armchairs, not looking at each other. Robbie sat down at one end of the blue velvet sofa and waved a hand at the seat next to him. I could sense that everyone was unsure about Hunter leading us, and I knew that Hunter sensed it, too.

"You know what's strange about this living room?" Robbie said. "There's no TV."

Hunter arched one blond eyebrow. "We don't have time for it." he said. The implication was that neither should we. Not a great way to start.

"Is Sky here?" Jenna asked.

"No. She's out this evening," Hunter replied. He was wearing a deep-blue denim shirt, and worn black jeans hung loosely on his hips. I suddenly had a vivid flashback to the moment he'd almost kissed me, standing in the dark outside my house. That had been only three nights ago, but until this minute I'd forgotten about it.

I felt my cheeks burn. Where had that stray thought come from?

Hunter moved to stand in front of the hearth. "Welcome, everyone. I appreciate your showing up on a weeknight. I know this change is difficult. And I understand that despite the way things turned out with Cal, you liked the way he led Cirrus.

"My approach will inevitably be different," he went on. "But I'll try to see that Cirrus remains a coven where you feel comfortable, where you can be open with one another, where you can learn to safely draw on the power that lies within you, and where you will enter into a true connection with your magick."

Sharon smiled at that. But all I could think about was how with Cal the circles had seemed natural and comfortable. With Hunter it felt like we were getting the Wicca version of a Rotary Club speech.

"So," Hunter said, "let's begin. If you'll follow me, please. ."

We followed him from the living room through a short hallway that I hadn't noticed when I'd been there before. It was lined with bookshelves that held a small collection of clothbound volumes. Through an arched doorway I could see into a small kitchen, where dried herbs and flowers hung from the ceiling.

At the end of the hall was a set of double wooden doors. Hunter opened them into a long, narrow room that was lit by candles and the glow of a wood-burning stove. The room ran the length of the house. Its back wall was covered with windows. A door led out to what seemed to be a deck. The windows rattled slightly, and I could hear the wind sighing through the trees.

An altar sat at one end of the room, holding more candles, a stick of burning incense, a shell, a dish of water in which purple blossoms floated, a pale blue crystal, and a stone sculpture of a woman. The sculpture was rough, the face barely defined, yet it was completely sensuous, a vision of the Goddess. You had only to look at it to know that it was made with love. I looked at Hunter. Had he sculpted it?