T*Witches: Dead Wrong (4 page)

“Sneeze state?” Cam asked.

“Yeah, Mass-ah, ah, ahchoo-zits!” Evan teased.

The wild and wooly blond dreads Alex had loved so much were now tightly cornrowed flat against his head. The ratty overalls and sneakers he’d always worn had been replaced by tight black jeans, stomping boots, and a black hooded sweatshirt, the back of which someone had painted a skeleton in a top hat, identified in gothic letters as “Dr. Death.”

“Yo, nasty boy, we’ve got to talk —” Alex said.

“I’m down with that,” Ev answered.

“About you and snakes and stooges.”

Evan’s grin faded fast. His face grew hard. The muscles in his cheeks rippled and his dark eyes flashed a warning glare. Then as swiftly as his anger came, it vanished. He lightened up. “Later for that,” he said. “When’d you get here? Back to Crow Creek, I mean? Are you back for good?”

“Just for a week. We’re staying in town, at Mrs. Bass’s. Can you give us a lift back there?” Alex asked, remembering Andy waiting in his car.

“Sure thing,” Ev said. “Be out in a minute.” While he went inside to check on his mother, Cam hurried out to
the road to thank Andy and tell him they had a ride home.

Alex sat down on the porch, her back against the bottom of the post, her legs tented, arms wrapped around her knees. As Lucinda and Andy had warned, Evan was different — his hair, his clothes, his quick, menacing anger.

Most of all, Evan’s scent had changed. His sweet chocolate fragrance had taken on a burnt edge. Alex’s nostrils still held the scorched tang, the bitter aftertaste she’d first sampled when her friend had burst out onto the porch with a shotgun aimed at her head.

CHAPTER SIX

THE CEMETERY

It was barely morning. A thin gray light edged the curtains in Mrs. Bass’s guest room. Sleep was impossible for Cam. Instead she found herself reviewing yesterday. Evan’s mom, sick, barely able to stand, clutching the porch pillar for balance. The wailing children, frightened by what Cam had done to the toy gun. Stopping at Lucinda’s place so Alex could say hi to Mrs. Carmelson. Evan hadn’t wanted to bother Luce. “She doesn’t need me messing up her life,” he’d said mysteriously, but Alex had insisted on going by.

How different Luce’s house had been from Evan’s. It was as small and gray as his, but full of laughter and life. And hugs! Everyone from Luce’s three-year-old niece
to her eighty-three-year-old grandmother had welcomed Cam as though they’d known her forever. Which, in a sense, they had — they’d known her “spitting image,” the other “pea in the pod,” Alex.

With so much love freely given away, it was a wonder Lucinda had any left over for Andy Yatz. But she plainly did. When Alex mentioned that Andy had given them a lift, she’d blushed, shrugged, and changed the subject. But Alex caught her thinking,
Andy is so fine!
She’d forwarded Luce’s thoughts to her twin just as Evan laughed and said, “Yo, Luce is wickedly crushed out on candy Andy Yatz.”

Then, as quickly as he’d turned into laughing boy, Evan had become somber and angry again. Angry, or ashamed, Cam couldn’t tell which. He’d just snapped his mouth shut, frowned, and looked down at his boots.

“Ev, what’s up?” Alex had demanded.

“Nothing,” he’d insisted. “I just want to get out of here. I mean, nothing personal, Luce, but it’s just better all around if you don’t hang with me.”

Alex had wanted to visit Sara’s grave before going back to Mrs. Bass’s house, but it was snowing too hard by then. If it let up that night, Evan promised, he’d take them over to the cemetery in the morning.

Well, it was morning. Cam cuddled under the quilt,
remembering now that she’d had some kind of whack dream — about a place. She and someone, maybe Alex, had been hiding someplace where strange dinosaur-tall silhouettes loomed through a mist. It was, Cam thought, the same place she’d seen Evan and the two other boys in the scary vision she’d had back home.…

“What time is it?” The muffled voice came from Alex, who’d put a pillow over her head. “Is it still snowing?”

“Seven-thirty,” Cam answered, craning her neck to see out the window. “It’s still dark out, but I don’t see any snow falling —”

Alex scrambled out of bed and looked out the window for herself. “It stopped. We can go to the cemetery … and I also want to go out to the trailer.”

Though she was warm in her bed, Cam shivered.

Alex, who’d just turned toward her sister, noticed. “What’s up?” she asked. “What did you see?”

“Someone who looks just like me,” Cam said in a spooky voice. “Only her hair’s the color of peroxide; and she’s wearing boxer shorts and a tee —”

Alex whisked the pillow from her bed and hurled it at her sister. “Get up and don’t go weird on me, okay? You looked like you were, you know, shaking.”

“Actually, Als, I didn’t
see
anything exactly —” Cam
hugged the pillow her sister had tossed and tried to explain. “But I did get this yucky, kind of bummed-out feeling when you mentioned the trailer.”

“Duh, that’s because it’s a yucky, bummed-out place, one of the major landmarks on the Crow Creek historical tour of dorky dwellings and heinous tin homes.”

By the time they showered, dressed, and gobbled half of the amazing hotcakes Mrs. Bass had fixed, Evan arrived and began beeping for them from the driveway. “For goodness’ sake, it’s too early for such a racket. Tell him to come in. There’s plenty for everyone,” the librarian insisted on her way out of the kitchen to get ready for work.

Alex ran outside to the back porch and hollered for Evan to come in; Cam threw open the kitchen window and seconded the invite. But Evan stayed stubbornly where he was, in the cab of his rusty pickup, blowing on his bare hands and acting like he hadn’t heard them.

“You ought to harvest those potatoes,” Alex grumbled at him, ten minutes later, as she climbed into the truck.

“Potatoes?”

“Yes, the ones growing in your ears,” Alex snapped. “You heard us calling you, didn’t you?”

“Yeah,” Evan conceded, pulling out of the driveway. “You still want to go over to the cemetery, right?”

Alex softened. “I do, thanks. So what was up back there? Why wouldn’t you come inside? Why’d you play deaf?”

He shrugged and suddenly Alex heard him thinking,
Yo, that’s all Mrs. B needs — me in her house. She’s better off not even knowing me. Not the way things are. Not the way it’s gonna go down. I don’t want to bring her grief.

Alex sent her twin a mental message.
Evan’s buggin’ over something that’s about to happen, something seriously bad
—

Cam suddenly realized,
I bet it’s happening at Big Sky.
Big Sky — that was it, the misty place she’d seen in her vision. The massive, menacing shapes were just the winter-empty Ferris wheel and roller coaster framed against a snowbound sky.

“Big Sky?” Alex blurted.

Evan hit the brakes. The pickup stalled and skidded sideways along the icy road, jarring the girls hard against their seat belts. “What are you talking about?” he demanded, once he’d gotten the truck under control again.

“You trying to kill us?” Alex yelled at him.

“What about ‘Big Sky’?” he hollered back at her. “What’s going on? What do you know about it?!”

“You tell us,” Alex demanded. “You and Luce — my so-called best buds — suddenly everyone’s got all these
serious deep secrets. No one’s leveling with me. No one’s telling the whole truth about anything —”

Evan started up the motor again. It coughed and sputtered, but he stayed silent.

“Evan!” Alex prodded him. “Don’t shut me out. We’ve known each other forever, known, trusted, backed up —”

“Leave it alone, Als. Quit doggin’ me,” he ordered. “I’m not shuttin’ anything. I’m trying to protect you, that’s all.”

“From what?” Alex wanted to know.

“From me,” Evan said.

He wouldn’t explain. His mind was closed on the subject. Literally! The only chain of thought Alex could break into was Evan fretting about her mentioning Big Sky. He wondered if Lucinda had let it slip. Then he remembered that he hadn’t told Luce anything about what they were going to do at the park —

“Evan, you’ve got to trust someone,” Alex whispered to him.

“I trust you,” he said. “That’s not the problem. Don’t you get it? It’s me I don’t trust.”

Evan pulled up to the cemetery and stopped the truck.

Alex climbed out. “We’ll be right back,” she told Evan, and he drove off to park.

Alex and Cam trudged up the hill to the stand of evergreens that Mrs. Bass had described.

Then Alex saw Sara’s grave. Tears she didn’t know she’d been hiding stung her eyes and filled her frosty nose.

Cam put an arm around her, but Alex shrugged her off. “I’m okay,” she said almost angrily. “Leave me alone. Just for a couple of minutes.”

Cam nodded and waited near the trees, stamping her feet and rubbing her hands together for warmth, while Alex trudged through the snow toward the little headstone.

Feeling a whirlwind of emotion, she knelt beside the grave. The tears burning her cheeks were not as surprising as the awful rush of anger she felt. She was thankful that the dice Mrs. Bass had seen were gone, but she couldn’t help picturing them there, picturing Ike — whose lies, disappearance, and debts had, Alex was convinced, hurried Sara’s death. Yes, yes, cigarettes had been the real culprits, but would Sara have smoked as much if Ike hadn’t gambled away their house; if she hadn’t been constantly worrying and working to feed and shelter her daughter while paying back the people her husband had cheated?

Now Ike wanted to mess up Alex’s life. Now he was scheming to shake down Dave and Emily Barnes or take
Alex away from them and from the sister she’d finally found.

A shadow fell across Sara’s grave. Cam had come up quietly behind Alex and put a comforting hand on her shoulder.

“We’ve got to find Ike — and stop him,” Alex said without looking up.

Cam knelt beside her. “We will. I promise we’ll —” She stopped abruptly and stared at the mound of snow in front of Sara’s headstone.

“What is it?” Alex demanded. “What do you see? Is it the stupid dice Ike left?” she guessed, alarmed. “Leave them alone, Cam. It gets me sick to think of him being here —”

“No,” her twin whispered in a soft, sleepy voice. “It’s not the dice …” The snow she was staring at melted. A wet circle grew in the powdery frost. At its bottom, all Alex could see was a section of frozen earth.

Cam’s fiery eyes stayed focused on the ice-webbed soil, heating it delicately. Under the mud, a seed stirred, then broke through the dirt. A furled stem opened its bright green leaves and purple buds began to blossom.

“Violets,” Alex breathed, awestruck. “They were her favorite flower.” Overcome, she pressed her tear-streaked face into the snow, into the earth her torch-eyed twin
had thawed, and inhaled the scent of fragile violets, the fragrance of Sara.

It started to snow again. Cam helped Alex up. “We’d better go,” she said gently.

Alex nodded. She didn’t trust herself to speak. Instead, as they made their way back to Evan’s pickup, she squeezed her sister’s cold, bare hand and allowed herself to lean on Cam — which Cam understood was Alex’s way of expressing her gratitude and her love.

CHAPTER SEVEN

TROUBLE AT THE TRAILER

“The trailer?” Evan asked as they climbed back into his truck.

“The stream,” Alex said, making a decision that surprised her as much as it did Cam. Evan shrugged and put the pickup in gear.

“I thought you wanted to see if Ike’s been staying at your old place,” Cam said.

“I do. But first you’ve got to see this stream. It’s magical, Cam. I mean, it’s beautiful and calming.” Alex snuffled back her tears and Ev handed her a beat-up roll of paper towels he fished from the floor of the cab. She tore off a brittle, water-stained sheet and gratefully blew her nose in it. “Sara used to take us there, right, Ev? When
we were kids. We used to love it so much, and she did, too. Before I face that butt-ugly trailer again, and maybe that creepy loser who’s calling himself my dad, I don’t know, I just thought maybe it’d be nice to sit by the stream awhile.”

Cam hiked up the collar of her red jacket and said, “Brrrr. In this snow?”

“You’re losing it,” Evan said. “This is not your basic water-watching weather, Als.”

“Ever been there in the winter?” Alex asked slyly.

“You know I haven’t,” Evan reminded her and — five minutes later, as they picked their way through the snowy woods to the stream — he rubbed his arms, which were prickled with goose bumps under the sleeves of his Dr. Death sweatshirt. “Yo, Als, is this place still haunted?” he tried to joke.

Alex nodded solemnly.

“Get out! It is not.” Evan laughed. “You used to sucker me in all the time with that baloney, but I know better now —”

Alex parted the branches of a towering evergreen. It was like parting a prickly green curtain. Behind it a strange mist became visible, a warm heavy vapor rising off the water — which, amazingly, was gurgling and running even though the temperature was below freezing. Then Cam noticed that there was no snow alongside the
stream. The bank was covered with rich green moss, tall reeds, cattails, and herbs.

Evan’s eyes bugged out.

“What is this place?” Cam asked in a hushed voice.

“One of the streams that feed Crow Creek,” Alex answered. She bent down and plucked a sprig of mint from the ground. Staring at it, she wondered what had made her choose it. “Mom and I used to come here in the dead of winter,” she said, rubbing the spicy herb between her palms. “It was our secret place … the way that old tree in the park in Marble Bay is yours —”

“It
is
haunted,” Cam ventured. “I can feel things … things swirling in the mist… spirits —”

That was all Evan needed. “I am so outta here!” he declared and, turning on his heels, he started back toward his pickup.

“There are spirits here,” Alex said, tucking the fresh mint into her pocket and brushing off her hands. “I can hear them, but I can’t make out what they’re saying. I never could. It’s not English. It’s a different language.… Very old.”

Impulsively, she raised her arms. Over the noise of Evan tromping through woods and the strangely soothing rush of the stream, she called out, “Ancient spirits, guide us. Be with us. Help us to help our troubled
friend.” Then she laughed and shook her head. “Evan’s right. I am losing it.”

“No,” Cam whispered. “I felt something just now. I mean, when you asked for help.”

“Yeah, right.” Alex sighed as they started back to the truck. “Cami, how are we going to help Evan if he won’t tell us anything?”

“Well, let’s see,” her sister said, as if prepping for a homework assignment. “What do we know now? He’s in big trouble. He told Lucinda something about it but she won’t tell us. An ugly event is scheduled and Evan’s in the middle of it. Oh, yeah. And he doesn’t want to get anyone else involved — like Lucinda’s family and Mrs. Bass. Is that about it?”

Alex nodded. “I need to get him alone. I need to convince him to talk to me. Or to
think
about what he doesn’t want to tell me, so I can read his mind.”

“We’re pretty alone here,” Cam pointed out.

“Only until we climb back into the pickup and Ev starts making small talk and concentrating on the road again.”

“Maybe the car won’t start or something. Then we’d be stuck here awhile with nothing to do, nowhere to go — ”

“Dream on,” Alex advised as they walked out of the
snowy woods and saw that Evan was already in the truck, warming it up, waiting for them.

“Your ride sounds terrible,” Cam said when they reached him.

“Get out! This baby purrs,” he said defensively.

“Cam’s right.” Alex backed her twin, though the pickup sounded like its usual clunky, coughing self. “There must be something wrong.”

“Open it up,” Cam challenged. “Let’s have a look.”

Evan shook his head at them, but climbed out and pried open the rusty hood. Cam glanced in at the engine, then focused hard on the radiator, her gray eyes going misty with concentration.

“Whoops,” Alex said as a plume of black smoke erupted from the engine.

Dejected, Evan leaned against the cab of his pickup as Cam, with a thumbs-up to her twin, climbed inside.

Sticking her cold hands into the pockets of her pea jacket, Alex felt the crumbled herb. She brought it out and held it up to her nose.

“What’s that?” Evan asked.

“Mint. It’s good for cooling things off —” Alex had no idea how she knew that — or even whether it was true. The words had just popped out of her mouth. It sounded good, she thought.

“Maybe we should toss it into the engine,” Evan said.

“It’s not for cars, it’s for cooling down hot emotions.” Half expecting him to push her hand away, Alex held the herb under Evan’s nose. “I think,” she added. “Raging feelings. You know, like anger, stubbornness —”

Evan sniffed the herb. “Smells like gum,” he said. “You know, spearmint.” Then he laughed at himself. “Oh, right. It’s mint.”

“Ev,” Alex asked softly, “how did a knife get into your locker?”

He didn’t blink or balk. “DJ stuck it in there,” he answered. “But no one believed that. Except some teacher saw him. I mean, she couldn’t identify who it was, but she was sure it wasn’t me. Derek’s taller than I am, plus I was still wearing my dreads back then. Anyway, that’s why they let me out —”

“Why did he do it?” she asked.

“Just to prove he could. Said he could get anything past security. You know Derek Jasper. Dude wears the big cowboy hat.”

“Friend of the Applebees, right?”

“Flunky of the ’Bees,” Evan said sourly. “They got no friends.”

“What about you? Aren’t they your pals now?” Alex
watched the snow clouds overhead, afraid to look at her old bud, afraid that Evan would stop talking at any moment.

“No way,” he said. “They’re pure mean. Every nasty bone in their bodies. Yo, I used to feel sorry for them — remember?” He turned to look at the open hood. Smoke still drifted from the motor.

“Ev, how’d you get involved with them?” Alex asked cautiously.

“How do you step into quicksand?” he answered, walking over to check out the engine.

“Was it your mom? I mean, because kids were making fun of her?”

Evan nodded. “Yeah, I guess that started it. Remember when Mrs. Applebee bailed? Kyle and Riggs know what it’s like to have kids in school make fun of your mom. So they helped me out — at first. Funny,” he said, without smiling. “My ma got me in with them. Now she’s why I can’t get out.”

Alex was confused. “Your mom’s involved?”

“Involved?” Now it was Evan’s turn to look away. He studied the engine. “Not exactly. She’s … aw, man. She’s like … a hostage … like something they can hold over my head —”

“They wouldn’t hurt her?” Alex asked, alarmed.

“Not if I go along,” Evan answered.

“Go along with what?”

Evan turned to face her, but couldn’t look in her eyes. He bent his head, kicked at the slush near his front tire. “You’re going back, aren’t you?” he asked. “I mean, you and her, your sister, you know, Cam. You two are heading out of here real soon, aren’t you?”

“We’re leaving early Sunday morning,” Alex told him.

“Good,” he said. “You don’t want to be around here Sunday afternoon.”

“Ev, why? What happens then?”

He looked up at her and grinned sadly. “You’re back East. That’s what happens.”

“No, what happens here? School starts on Monday, doesn’t it? Evan, what’s going to happen the day before school starts again?”

“I’m going to miss you, Als.” He inhaled, then blew out a big breath. “Okay, she’s cooled off enough now. Hop in. Let’s hit that tin toilet you used to call home — and flush out your bad stepdad.”

When they got to Alex and Sara’s old place, Evan decided he’d stay outside and keep an eye out for anyone who showed up.

“Okay thanks,” Alex told Evan. “If you see anything suspicious, lean on that horn, okay?”

“You got it,” Ev promised.

“So, did he open up?” Cam whispered as she and Alex slogged through knee-high snow toward the ramshackle mobile home.

“Yes and no,” Alex answered. “He talked. He really seemed to want to. But not about what’s actually going down. Except that it’s slated for Sunday afternoon, the day before school starts.”

“And right after we’re gone,” Cam said.

The trailer door was padlocked. As they drew closer, Cam saw that the bolt was hanging open. Someone had broken into the place. Alex removed the lock and slowly pulled open the door. The squeal of metal echoed through the silent woods.

Cam grabbed her sister’s hand. Alex gasped and turned toward her. “What?!” she whispered. “What did you see?”

“Nothing. I just want us to go inside together.”

“Okay, then, let’s go —” Alex found the cement block that had served as a step up to the trailer buried in snow. She and Cam kicked it clean, then, holding hands, stepped up and through the door.

It was dark and cold inside. The thick, dusty old wooden blinds were shut. Icy air and flakes of snow blew through the cramped kitchen area. Before Alex’s eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, Cam pointed to the hole in the floor through which the snowflakes were
swirling. For a moment, the cold air held down a strange and awful odor coming from the rear of the trailer.

Alex smelled it first. Gagging, she reached for the cord and flipped open the blinds. There were rags and newspapers piled up in the kitchen and an oily puddle on the floor, kerosene or turpentine, something that smelled like fuel. That was the first smell that assailed them. The second was stronger and far worse.

“Oh, no,” Cam said. Wrinkling her nose at the pungent stench, she pointed toward what had once been Alex’s room. “There’s something over there. On the floor.”

Alex followed her sister’s gaze. The accordion-pleated door to her room was pulled back. An odd form, oblong and twisted, lay halfway in the room and halfway out in the narrow hallway. It looked like a rolled-up rug or a mound of rags. But Alex knew: It was a body.

Cam took a step forward and tripped over something in her path. Alex caught her as she stumbled forward, almost tumbling onto the smelly heap. Cam screamed, startling Alex, who shrieked, too.

Shaking, they both looked down at once and saw a boot — a pointy-toed boot with a two-inch heel. With trembling fingers, Alex lifted it up, just as Cam stared at the ghastly warped bundle on the floor.

She could see through the wrapping. Her knees
went weak. She grabbed Alex’s arm to keep from buckling. “It’s … a person … a man,” Cam croaked, her mouth dry, her stomach starting to heave.

Alex’s heart was pumping so hard and fast she could hardly hear herself speak. “Is it him?” she asked. “Is it Ike?” And as Cam covered her mouth to keep from hurling, Alex remembered that her twin had no idea what Isaac Fielding looked like.

Alex couldn’t see through the soiled, smelly rags. It was their shape that told her a body was hidden within them. And the odor that poured from the filthy package … the smell… It wasn’t Ike’s. Ike’s stench was the stale sour odor of all-night poker games, of sweat, fear, and mucky ashtrays in airless rooms.

This odor, this awful stinging smell was familiar and rank as spoiled cheese. It was huge … and not human.

Cam’s eyes were tearing, her chest was heaving. “Als,” she managed to whisper, “let’s get out of here.”

“ASAP,” her sister agreed. Shrieking, they rushed for the door and, holding hands, leaped through it into the snow.

The boot flew from Alex’s hand and plunked into a powdery drift in the woods. Cam started toward it but Alex stopped her. “Leave it,” she said. “I know whose it is.”

“Thantos?” Cam asked, shivering. “Or … the smell, that disgusting stink … was it Fredo’s boot?”

“It’s Ike’s,” Alex said, nausea welling in her throat. “It was his boot. Let’s call the police.”

“No way,” Evan balked, when they climbed back into his pickup. “No cops. I’ve got enough problems —”

While the pickup flew over bumps and bounced through road craters, and Alex held her stomach and tried to keep her hotcakes down, Cam pulled out her cell phone and dialed 911. She barely had time to blurt out what they’d found in the trailer, when Evan reached across, took the phone, and clicked it off.

“They’re going to want to know how you got out here, and you’re going to say me, and they’re going to come around asking a bunch of questions I haven’t got answers to —”

Despite Cam’s demands and Alex’s coaxing, Evan wouldn’t stop, talk, or return the cell phone until they got to Mrs. Bass’s house. Then he let them out, tossed the slim-line to Cam, and sped away.

The house was empty. Mrs. Bass wasn’t home from work yet. “The smell,” Alex said, curling up on the living room sofa and pulling a pillow against her. “I know it’s gross, but I kind of recognized it.” Chilled — as much from the stench and sights in the trailer as from the cold — she kept her jacket on.

Shivering, Cam plopped down into the armchair.
“The only one I ever met who smelled that rank was Uncle Fredo,” she said, glancing wishfully at the fireplace. If there had been wood in it, she thought, she might have tried to light it with a look. “You know, when he turned himself into that reeking, eight-hundred-pound lizard.”

“Fredo.” Alex made a face. “Another nut on our dysfunctional family tree.”