T*Witches: The Power of Two (12 page)

Before she opened her eyes, Alex knew she wasn't home. The sturdy mattress beneath her felt nothing like the sagging slab of foam rubber on which she'd slept for years. There was the crinkle of fresh linens against her cheek instead of the thin, pilled sheen of threadbare sheets. Even the light was different. Too bright, hot-red behind her closed lids. And the voice, "Bulletin, bulletin. Breaking news on Marleigh—" was not her mom's.

Neither was it Cam's, the stranger with the greeting-card-perfect life, who might just turn out to be her sister.

Without stirring, Alex listened.

"Why are you whispering, Cam-o-rama?" the unfamiliar voice asked.

The question was clear but distant. There was a metallic echo, a hint of static, behind it. The static, not the voice, reminded Alex of how Cam's pal, Beth, had sounded yesterday on the phone.

She realized she was hearing someone—not Beth, not Cam—speaking on the phone. This pleased and puzzled her because she'd never been able to hear phone voices before, never clearly from across a room.

Ever since she'd arrived, ever since Camryn Barnes had taken her hand, Alex's senses had become sharper, especially her hearing.

She'd known Cam's parents were coming upstairs last night. Muffled by her own laughter and by Cam's, she'd heard a soft, scared voice say, "Dave, we have to find out," and then, footsteps on the carpeted stairs. They'd come busting in, the pretty but puffy-eyed blond woman and her lawyer husband, a second later.

Emily and Dave. They'd turned out to be okay. They even smelled good. Emily was all marshmallows and gardenias—soft, sweet, powdery, but with a perfumed sting. Dave's scent was... friendly, Alex thought. Green and earthy, like a new garden. They were both pretty nice, just nervous and confused.

No more than she was, Alex had to admit, and about mostly the same stuff. Like what she was doing at their house, how she'd gotten there, and why. In spite of their confusion, they'd invited her to stay, for as long as she needed to.

She opened her eyes and squinted cautiously into the sunlight. Against the morning brightness, a shadow girl with sleep-tossed hair was hunched in front of the window, whispering into the phone.

"It's okay, I'm up," Alex said as the shadow took on her own features and became Camryn Barnes.

"Oh, you're awake," Cam said. Clamping her hand over the mouthpiece, she added, "It's my friend Brianna—with a Marleigh update."

Alex heard the echoey voice. "Cam, hello? Who are you talking to?"

Cam sidestepped Bree's question. "What's the bulletin?"

"You're gonna freak. Guess what some poor kid at B.U. found?"

"B.U.?" Alex asked.

"Boston University," Cam said into the phone. "What? Not the unidentified body of a blond girl about Marleigh's age and size."

"You already knew! Either you got one of your feelings, or someone told you. It better be a mojo thing, 'cause no way was I scooped on this," Bree complained on the other end. "Who told you?"

"Beth," Cam answered. "Last night."

"No way. Beth Fish, the person least likely to know any dish? Go ahead, just stab me—wait, wait! Turn on the radio, Cami-sole. They're talking about it now."

Alex rolled her eyes. "It's not Marleigh," she said, switching on the radio between the beds.

"It's probably not her," Cam said into the phone.

Brianna sounded miffed. "You having one of your mojo moments, Camay?"

"With a vengeance," Cam answered, just as the announcer said that the body had been identified, but police would not release the victim's name, pending notification of her family. "According to police, only one thing is certain," he intoned. "The deceased girl is not Marleigh Cooper."

Although Cam felt awful for whoever had been found dead, she heaved a sigh of relief. Then she eyed Alex as she teased Bree. "You want a real bulletin? I've got one that'll make your hard-to-hold hair stand straight up."

"Spill!" Bree ordered.

In one sweeping motion, Alex snatched the phone away from Cam. "Catchya later, Bree-ski," Alex said, hanging up.

"Why'd you do that?" Cam demanded.

"Because you were about to tell her about me, and I'm nobody's scoop," Alex retorted, wandering over to Cam's photo wall and studying the pictures again. "So what do you think happened to Marleigh?" she asked, abruptly changing the subject. "I mean, people don't just disappear. Except for me, of course." She gave a guilty groan. "Ugh, Lucinda and Evan are probably freaking out about my vanishing act. I didn't even say good-bye."

"How come?" Cam asked.

Alex ran a hand through her stringy dyed hair. Her natural roots were showing, brown, with coppery highlights. Auburn hair. Exactly like Cam's. "Everything happened so fast," she said.

"Do you want to call them?" Cam offered. "You can use my phone."

Alex thought about it.

"I know, I know," Cam said. "You want privacy. I'm going to take a shower."

As soon as the bathroom door closed, Alex punched in Lucinda's number. A very sleepy girl answered on the fifth ring. One of Luce's nieces, she guessed. "Ooops, my bad, what time is it?"

"I don't know," the child answered. "Everybody's still sleeping but me."

She'd forgotten the time difference. She was about to apologize again and hang up, when suddenly Lucinda was on the line. "Alex?"

"Luce! How'd you know it was me?" Was she carrying some random germ, a mind-reading virus, that infected everyone she came in contact with, Alex wondered.

"I can't believe it!" Lucinda was shrieking. "It's really you! Every time the phone rings, I keep hoping it'll be you. Als, what happened? Where've you been? Is Evan with you? We were at the trailer till like way after dark, waiting for you. I had to come home. Is he still there?"

"I don't know," Alex said. The sound of Luce's voice nearly brought her to tears. "I mean, I'm not there. At the trailer—"

"Good thing," Lucinda said, "'cause that loser landlord of yours showed up."
"Hardy Beeson?"

"Als, I never knew how scary he was. Man, the minute he started pounding on the door, me and Evan were like, uh-oh, what's up with this? It was like some hot wind went blasting through the place. We were just burning up, broke out in a sweat and everything. Hot under the collar is one thing, but this guy was literally steaming. You could see waves of heat coming off him. And he
really
wanted to know where you were. When we said we didn't know, after about the hundredth time, he stomped his foot, and Alex, it went right through the floor! Those heinous boots of his, they burned right through the floor of the trailer."

"Beeson?" Alex asked, shocked. "Impossible."

"It was him, all right. He was still wearing his tacky funeral getup," Lucinda insisted.

"The man's certified, Luce. But strong enough to stomp his foot through the floor? No way."

"Okay, okay. But we both saw it, me and Evan. Anyway, if he tries to scam more rent money from you, tell him you know who pounded the hole in the kitchen floor."

"Luce," Alex said softly, "I might not be going back to the trailer for a while. I'm... pretty far away."

"Did you go up to the creek or something?"

The creek. Crow Creek. Ten miles from home, Luce meant, where Alex's mom used to take them wading, where she'd taught them to skip stones when they were little. It hurt to remember. Alex took a deep breath. "I'm in Marble Bay, Massachusetts," she said.

"Right, Dorothy, and I'm in Oz. What are you doing there, anyway, looking for Marleigh Cooper?"
"No. I'm... Luce, remember that tourist girl at the park? The one you thought looked just like me? I'm at her house—"

"Reality check, Alexandra Nicole
Fooling
. Why do I get the feeling you're playing me?"

"You know that old guy at the funeral—"

"Who, Beeson?"

"No, the white-haired doctor, the one I was talking to at the cemetery. He knew my mom, back in the day. He brought me out here."

"Freeze! That's enough, Als. You stopped being funny about four minutes ago." All of a sudden, Lucinda sounded miffed. "I didn't see any white-haired guy at the cemetery. It was yesterday, so I think I'd remember. Plus, you can't drive from Montana to Massachusetts in one day. And I hope you're not fixing to tell me that he gave you a lift in his private spaceship."

"That's the thing, Luce. I don't know exactly what happened. He packed my bag, and the next thing I remember, I'm ringing Camryn Barnes's doorbell."

"Well, I'm glad you called me to tell me all this, especially at five in the morning. Go to bed, Alex. Get some sleep and call me later," Lucinda said and hung up.

Alex was fighting back tears when Cam came out of the bathroom drying her hair. "Bad news?" she asked.

"Only if you call bad news as having your best bud think you're certified," Alex murmured.

"Don't worry," Cam tried to console her. "I'm sure she'll understand... that is, once we figure it out. And there
are
kids around here you might actually like."

"Like Brianna, the bulletin queen? Don't think so."

"Okay, she might be acquired taste," Cam conceded. "But my other friends are cool. There are six of us, so my dad made this up and it kinda stuck. They call us the Six Pack—"

Alex stuck her finger in her mouth and pretended to gag.

"Well, you're going to have to meet them sometime. I mean, if you're going to be here, be part of—"

Alex interrupted. "I'm not. No offense to the princess pack, but I have plenty of friends back home. And, just so we're clear, I'm not up for adoption."

"I never said you were." Cam was annoyed.

"You never said it, but I know what you're thinking."

"Oh, I forgot, you're the mind reader—"

"Definitely," Alex asserted. "And, in case your—what did your pal Banana call it? Oh, yeah. Your mojo," she mocked. "Well, in case your mojo's on the fritz, you're about to have a visitor!"

"You mean Beth," Cam snapped, wrapping the towel like a turban around her damp head. "As if I didn't know!"

There was a knock at the door. "Cami, you decent? It's me," Beth called.

Cam and Alex both jumped, amazed at the accuracy of their prediction.

"How'd you know?" Cam whispered.

"How did you?" Alex replied.

"I don't know," they both said, scrambling to opposite sides of the room.

Beth saw Alex first, and shrieked. "I can't believe it. You turned yourself into Big Sky-girl. When'd you chop and dye your 'do?"

"Actually, I
am
Big Sky-girl," Alex announced. Her gray eyes sparkling with mischief, she jerked a thumb at Cam. "The leader of the Six Pack is over yonder."

Beth followed the thumb—all the way to Cam, who, looking slightly dazed, flopped down onto her computer chair, still shaken by the accuracy of her guess.

No, it was more than a guess. It had been a certainty. She'd known, just plain known—and apparently Alex did too--that it was Beth at the door, now gaping, waiting for an explanation.

Cam shrugged sheepishly. "Meet my evil twin?"

Beth wasn't amused. She turned to stare as Alex unzipped the small duffel Doc had packed for her. "Your mom said you had company. She didn't happen to mention exactly
who
was here with you."

"Maybe you should sit down," Cam suggested.

Obediently, Beth plopped herself on Cam's bed.

"It's kind of hard to explain," Cam began. "You remember Alex, right?"

"Well, her face is familiar," Beth cracked dryly. "Hey, hi. Sure I do," she added.

"Bet you didn't expect to see me here." Alex held up a wrinkled blue T-shirt and a pair of weathered cutoffs made from jeans she'd worn till the knees gave out.

"Wow," Beth answered sarcastically. "You read my mind."

"Yeah, she's good at that," Cam said. Then, without thinking, she crinkled her nose at the outfit Alex was considering. Which sealed Alex's choice.

"Don't you love these shorts?" Alex crowed to Beth. "Aren't they so, I don't know, so un-Marble Bay?"
From the moment she'd entered the room, Beth's mouth had been set in a grimace. Now, as she glanced from Cam to Alex and back again as she listened to the easy way her best friend and a girl she'd met a week ago bantered with each other, her expression hardened.

"So you guys have kept in touch?" she asked, feeling awkward suddenly, like an outsider, despite the fact that this room was practically her home away from home.

"Not exactly," Alex said.

It didn't help that the real outsider, her best friend's cocky clone, answered the question meant for Cam.

"Well, we did e-mail each other," Cam chimed in.

"Was that before or after you stopped saying how you don't look anything like her?" Beth asked coolly.

"I was wrong. You were right," Cam assured her, feeling the frost from Beth. "Honest, Bethie, you have no idea how right."

Instead of melting at the sound of her nickname, instead of gloating or squealing I-told-you-so, Beth stared blankly at her friend.

"Come on, Beth, I thought you'd be psyched." Cam deliberately pumped cheerfulness into her voice. "Alex and I may really be twins." It didn't work. Why had she thought it would? This was Beth. Not some random person. "It's like you said, back in Montana. You were right. I was adopted. And I never knew it." Cam hadn't expected her voice to crack just then.

But instead of Beth going all buttery, her wiry bud just said, "When did you find out?"

Cam let out a long sigh. "Last night."

"And between last night and this morning, you couldn't find time to tell me?"

Alex rolled her eyes. "She's thrilled, right?"

"Beth, don't be mad—" Cam began.

"I'm not mad," Beth objected. "I'm just, you know, confused."

"Confused?" Alex teased. "Hmmm… about what?"

"Oh, I don't know," Beth retorted. "How 'bout why my best friend chose not to inform me about two explosions that just rocked her world? You don't think twice about waking me up at four A.M. if you're nervous about a history test! Now you find out, oh, you were adopted! And, in related news, your identical twin, who you refused to admit even looked like you, has popped in for a visit."

Nailed, Cam reached for an excuse. "It all happened so quickly."

"She was here in this room when I called to tell you about the body, wasn't she?"

Cam nodded sheepishly.

Beth's nostrils flared. "And even then, you couldn't tell me?"

"I knew she'd get mad," Alex said to Cam. "Lucinda kind of flipped out, too."

"I'm not flipped out." Beth stood up, ticked that they were talking about her as if she weren't even in the room. "I just don't understand what's going on—"

"Take a number," Alex murmured.

"Try not to judge, please," Cam begged.

"Yeah," Alex teased. Tossing her funky Montana duds over her shoulder, she grabbed the cosmetic bag Doc had packed, and sashayed toward Cam's picture-perfect bathroom.

Alex closed the bathroom door, sat down on the edge of the tub, and pressed the wrinkled blue T-shirt to her face. She inhaled deeply. Under the bitter grease smell of the diner, she breathed in Sara's scent—a vulnerable and tender fragrance of violets, her mother's favorite flower.

Opening the cosmetic bag to find her toothbrush, Alex noticed that Doc had thoughtfully tossed in some of her jewelry. It was a strange selection.

The faded pink silk box that held her mom's delicate moon charm necklace was there. She decided to wear it.

Then she noticed—among worthless hoop earrings, fake rhinestone studs, and the plastic mood ring she'd sported at seven—a miniature silver skull. The one Evan had given her three years ago, when they'd all thought tattoos and body piercing were so in. It was on a tarnished metal chain, as faux silver as the grinning little skull. Alex had nearly forgotten she had it.

The memory of that doofy time, when they'd been such wusses and tried to look so tough, tickled her now. She rubbed the cool little head against her cheek, the way she'd once rubbed the satin trim of her favorite baby blanket. And she thought of chocolaty Evan with his wild dreads and gentle heart.

The ghoulish little trinket was just the thing to go with her rank cutoffs and her mom's sweet-scented old T-shirt. Slipping the necklace over her head, Alex wished Doc had put in her scuzzy high-tops. They'd have completed the in-your-face look she was after today.

She rummaged through the duffel hoping to find them. No luck, but at the bottom of the bag, she felt a small cool object, which when she pulled it out, turned out to be Doc's quartz crystal.

How he'd sneaked it into her stuff was nearly as mysterious as how he'd got them here in a single day. Alex shrugged, and slipped the beautiful pink stone into the pocket of her shabby shorts.