T*Witches: Building a Mystery (7 page)

"Cami," Beth whined. "How do you know?"

"Because he doesn't drive," Cam blurted involuntarily.

"Non sequitur alert. Earth to Camryn. Help me here, Als," Dylan laughed, turning to Alex.

Alex's eyes were half closed and her head thrown back slightly, as though she was concentrating, listening. "The car crash," she whispered, out of the blue. "It was a kid. A little boy I think—"

"Excuse me, are we interrupting another private Roswell moment?" Beth was trying for humor. It didn't really work. She was plainly feeling left out again.

Cade clasped Alex's shoulders. "What are you talking about?" he asked. "What about a car crash? A kid?" Then, embarrassed, he released her.

Madison scurried over and began to fill Cade in on Eddie's arrest.

"You don't seem thrilled that your mysterious housebreaker has been caught," Cam commented.

"I... I never expected this," Cade said carefully.
Everything's going wrong.

"What went wrong?" Alex asked.

Cade stared hard at her. "Nothing. What are you talking about?"

"But didn't you just say—"

Cam knew what had happened. She cleared her throat loudly and stared meaningfully at her twin. And Alex realized that she'd finally broken through. She'd read Cade's thoughts.

"It's him," Camryn said as they walked their bikes up the driveway. "Look at the way he acted when he found out Eddie was the thief—"

"No way," Alex insisted. "If anything, it's Madison."

"You don't want to believe it's Cade because you're crushed on him." Cam followed Alex into the garage.

"Because I'm so superficial and you're so deep? I don't think so."

Something moved in the back of the garage, startling Alex. Coming from sunlight into the shadows, she couldn't make out what it was. But she thought she heard a recognizable voice, distant, aged, and raspy. Goose bumps prickled the back of her neck. "Doc?" she whispered.

"Wrong again." Cam's eyesight, as sharp as Alex's hearing, has become even keener now that they were both wearing their necklaces. "It's only Dylan," she gloated.

He was sitting in the dark, in an old armchair Dave was supposed to be repairing. "Only Dylan?" he grumbled, standing up and unfolding the note he'd been toying with. "Thanks for the ego boost. Mom just went ballistic on me. I got another slip for her to sign from Hammond. Thanks to Mr. Shnor-rat."

"Why didn't you take it to Dad?" Cam asked. "He's way easier—"

" 'Cause he's having this major do-not-disturb session in the den," Dylan answered. "Some hotshot client—"

"Well, thanks for warming Mom up for us," Cam said, walking into the house. "Couldn't you have waited till Sunday night? I was hoping for a decent weekend."

Alex followed her twin inside. "Cade's going to call me tomorrow," she said casually. You have to admit, he
is
hot."

"If he delivers a message," Cam said, "don't forget to share it." She started up the stairs.

"Dream on," Alex called after her. "There is nothing about Cade Richman I'm going to share with you."

"My goodness." Emily was on her way down. "Where are you going in such a hurry?"

"Hey, Mom. Gotta check my e-mail. BRB," Cam promised.

Emily shook her head.

"Be right back," Alex translated for her.

"Oh," Emily said stiffly.

"Right." Alex rolled her eyes. "I wonder if you're thinking Dylan's latest bust is my fault?"

Emily was, of course. Alex heard her thoughts as distinctly as if she'd shouted them. Emily knew she was probably being unfair,
but this strange girl
—Alex bristled at the label—this intruder, who looked exactly like her daughter but was
really so different from Cam, so rebellious and antisocial and...

Emily became aware of Alex's gaze. And her inner monologue changed.

Behind the scowling defiance,
Alex heard the woman tell herself,
there is sadness in those startling gray eyes.
Ha! Alex thought.
Sadness, loneliness, grief.

Emily Barnes
, she scolded herself,
this girl, this heartbroken child, has just become an orphan. She has lost the most precious human being in the world to her. Her mother...

Alex had had enough. The phone rang. She ran into the kitchen to answer it. By the time Emily came into the room, Alex was sitting on top of the kitchen counter—
Why couldn't she have sat in a chair like a normal person?
—curling the phone cord around her fingers.

She grinned at Emily suddenly, then winked, melting away the last of Emily's reserve.

"Who was that?" she asked pleasantly as Alex got off the phone.

"Cade," Alex answered. "Cade Richman from school. I'm going to meet him tomorrow—"

Emily sighed deeply. "I'm afraid not," she said.

"I don't believe this!" Alex ranted. "This is unfair.. How can you do this to me? You can't. You have no right to. You're not my mother! You're no one's mother!"

"Yo, cut it out, Alex. That really stinks." It was Dylan. He was at the kitchen door.

"She's so unfair. You hate me! I bet Dave would let me go."

"I doubt that," Emily said. "It was his idea to begin with. Dylan, where's your sister? Will you find her, please?" she asked her son, who was flushed with embarrassment at the way Alex was carrying on.

He stepped out into the hallway and saw Cam charging down the stairs. "Where've you been?"

"On the Web," she answered breathlessly. "Where's Alex? I've got something to tell her."

"Not right now," Dylan cautioned. "She's in there, going a few rounds with Mom. It's not a pretty sight."

"We're not supposed to go out with anyone unless the FBI—the Federal Barnes Investigation—checks them out first!" Alex hollered as Cam entered the kitchen. "You try to reason with her. She's
your
make-believe mom!"

"Don't talk to my mother that way," Cam ordered.

"Oh, now she's your mom." Dylan got into it. "I thought Alex's mom was supposed to be your mom—"

Cam looked helplessly at Alex.
Als,
she said silently,
she's not your mom.

"You can say that again!" Alex shouted. "And she never will be!"

Dave Barnes joined the fray. His dark curls were churned up, corkscrewing from his head, as they only did when he'd been anxiously running his hand through his hair. Whipping off his glasses, he demanded, "What's going on in here?"

Emily began to answer, but Alex jumped in. "I met this really nice guy at school and Emily won't let me go out with him. I mean, not even in bright daylight."

"Do we know him?" Dave put his arm around his wife. "Is he someone you've known for a while, Cam?"

"He's a new guy," Dylan butted in. "He's rich and weird. Kind of a loner—"

"I didn't ask you," his father said abruptly.

"Whoa, excuse me. No normal kids allowed, right?"

Cam and Alex looked at Dylan's over-the-top outfit, sagging baggies, hugely oversized parka, fat, unlaced high-tops, two earrings in one lobe, blue-streaked blond hair, moussed at weird angles. They burst out laughing.

"Freaks." Steaming, Dylan left.

"I guess I'm not surprised this happened today," Dave mused. He kissed the top of Emily's head, then beckoned to the girls. "Come into the den." He led them through the pantry out into the front hall and opened the door to his at-home office. "There's someone you should meet. It's on his advice that we decided to be extra cautious about who you see for a while."

A thin man in a black homburg hat was sitting in the armchair next to Dave's desk. His back was to the door.

"Lordship," Dave said. Slowly, the client turned. His hat brim was low over his forehead; still, there was something luminously pale about his face. He removed his hat with bony white hands.

Cam sucked in her breath and clutched Alex's hand.

His hair was ice-white, kinky, thinning. In places his pale pink scalp showed through, shiny as silk.

"You... you're the bleacher-creature," Cam said.

"Cam," Dave scolded.

Alex breathed, "Doc."

He smiled at her, nodded.

"CYBI, he's the old policeman," Cam decided.

"CYBI?" the old man looked at Dave.

"Can You Believe It," Alex translated. Then agreed with Cam. "That witchy gray-eyed cop's partner, right?"

"Don't call her witchy," the old man said in his peculiar raspy voice. He chuckled dryly. "She prefers 'Goddess.' As for me, I don't mind 'Doc.' Certainly I prefer it to 'bleacher-creature.'"

"Doc? You're really real? I was beginning to think I dreamed you," Alex was amazed.

"I did," Cam said. "I did dream him, lots of nights. Dad, what's he doing here? Do you know him?"

Dave put an arm around Cam's shoulder an held her tight. "Baby, he's the man who arranged your adoption."

Alex paled. Well, that explained why he'd dumped her here, she thought, withdrawing her hand from Cam's.

"Then you must know my..." Cam was saying. "I mean, our real mom—"

"All in good time." The fragile old man held up his hand to stave off Cam's question. "Call me what you will, but my actual name is Karsh," he confessed. "Have you been approached yet?"

"Approached?" Alex asked.

"By the messenger," Dave explained. "The one sent to lure you to Thantos."

"Dad... Dave... you know about him?" Cam was shocked. "Are you... like us?"

"Like enough to have served and protected you these fourteen years," Karsh confided. "But no, David is not exactly like you. He is more like... like Sara was."

"My mother?" Alex stiffened.

"Your devoted protector," Karsh gently corrected her.

"I tried to tell you before," Cam whispered. "Sara wasn't our mother. She couldn't have children—"

Alex whirled on Cam. "How do you know? You don't know anything."

"I... I've been doing some research. On my computer. I was going to tell you, Als. I tried to tell you just now. But you were too busy trashing my... my mom. Or Emily, or whatever I'm supposed to call her." She turned to her father. "Does Mom know, too—about us, about the messenger?"

"No, honey," Dave said, then he looked to Karsh for help.

"I thought it best—a protective measure," Karsh explained to Cam. "For you, for her..." The old man coughed. His voice, when he spoke again, was strained; it was still coarse and grating, but barely above a whisper. "There is much you must learn, my dear ones. And little I can tell you now. But I'll..." He grinned his thin-lipped grin. "I'll give it a shot. Stay, David. You might as well. You've proven your loyalty to Camryn—and to Alexandra."

"And it's been my pleasure," Dave said. "But old friend, Lord Karsh, why didn't you tell me there were two of them? Twins."

"You might be more comfortable sitting," Karsh suggested. And they did. Dave moved piles of paper off his old brown leather sofa and they arranged themselves on it: Dave in the center, with Cam snuggling against him, Alex on his other side, leaning on the armrest, chin in hand.

"The questions," Karsh began. "The universal questions: Who are we? Where did we come from? Where are we going?" He rubbed his hands together. "Let's start at the beginning. Your beginning, actually. Not
the
beginning. I'm far too tired to go all the way back."

They were born, he told them, two minutes apart on a most auspicious day—October thirty-first, Halloween. One of them was born listening to owls call and bats shriek, just as the full moon was setting; the other, a moment after daylight, squinting into the rising sun. And they were named for Apollo, the sun god, and his twin sister, Artemis, the hunter.

Their mother's name was Miranda.