The Initation

Summary THE CIRCLE'S POWER HAS LURED HER HOME...

Forced to move from sunny California to gloomy New England, Cassie longs for her old life. Even so, she feels a strange kinship to a terrifying group of teens who seem to rule her school. Initaited into the coven of witches that's controlled New Salem for hundreds of years, she's drawn into the Secret Circle, a thrilled that's both intoxicating and deadly. But when she falls for the mysterious and intriguing Adam, Cassie must choose whether to resist temptation or risk dark forces to get what she wants--even if it means that one wrong move could ultimately destroy her.

CHAPTER ONE
It wasn't supposed to be this hot and humid on Cape God. Cassie had seen it in the guidebook; everything was supposed to be perfect here like Camelot. Except the guidebook added absently, for the poison ivy, and ticks, and green flies, and toxic shellfish, and undercurrents in seemingly peaceful water. The book had also warned against hiking out on narrow peninsulas because high tide could come along and strand you. But just at this moment Cassie would've given anything to be stranded on some peninsula jutting far out into the Atlantic Ocean-- as long a Portia Bainbridge was on the other side. Cassie had never been so miserable in her life.

"...and my older brother, the one on the MIT debate team, the one who went to the World Debate Tournament in Scotland two years ago..." Portia was saying. Cassie felt her eyes glaze over again and slipped back into her wretched trance. Both of Portia's brothers went to MIT and were frighteningly accomplished, not only at intellectual pursuits but also at athletics. Portia was frighteningly accomplished herself, even though she was nonly going to be a junior in high school this year, like Cassie. And since Portia's favorite subject was Portia, she'd spent most of the last month telling Cassie about it.

"...and then after I placed fifth in extemporaneous speaking at the National Forensic League Championship last year, my boyfriend said, 'Well, of course you'll go All American...' "

Just one more week, Cassie told herself. Just one more week and I can go home. The very thought filled her with a longing so sharp that tears came out of her eyes. Home, where her friends were. Where she didn't feel like a stranger, and unaccomplished, and boring, and stupid just because she didn't know what a quahog was. Where she could laugh about all this: her wonderful vacation on the eastern seaboard.

"...so my father said, 'Why don't I just buy it for you?' But I said, 'No-- well maybe...' "

Cassie just stared out at sea. It wasn't that Cape God wasn't beautiful. The little cedar-shingled cottages, with white picket fences covered with roses and wicker rocking chairs on the porch and geraniums hanging from the rafters, were pretty as picture postcards. And the village greens and tall-steepled churches and old-fashioned schoolhouse made Cassie feel as if she'd stepped into a different time.

But everyday there was Portia to deal with. And even thought every night Cassie thought of some devastatingly witty remark to make to Portia, somehow she never got around to actually making any of them.