T*Witches 3: Seeing Is Deceiving
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Authors: H.B. Gilmour,Randi Reisfeld
T*Witches:
Seeing is Deceiving
H.B. Gilmour
& Randi Reisfeld
© 2001, 2012 H.B. Gilmour and Randi Reisfeld
All rights reserved.
First published by Scholastic in 2001.
Dedicated to the memory of Deanna Reisfeld.
Thanks for the inspiration, the support,
and the red-haired twins.
—R.R.
With love and gratitude, for PJ and Fred.
—H.B.G.
THE AUTHORS WOULD LIKE TO SEND A SPECIAL WHOO-HOO! TO STEVE KASDIN, NATHANIEL BISSON, MICHELLE LEWY, ELLIE BERGER, TINA MCINTYRE, AND THEIR TEAMS FOR USING THEIR EXTREMELY EXCELLENT GIFTS ON BEHALF OF T*WITCHES.
Chapter Three: A Crisis on Coventry Island
Chapter Eight: Blinded by the Light
Chapter Nine: A Tale of Three Brothers
Chapter Eleven: One Father too Many
Chapter Twelve: An Enchanted Evening
Chapter Thirteen: The Nightmare
Chapter Fourteen: Sunday in Salem
Chapter Fifteen: Seeing is Deceiving
Chapter Sixteen: Breaking Through
Chapter Seventeen: Switching Sisters
Chapter Eighteen: A Bird in Hand
Chapter Nineteen: The Time has Come
Chapter Twenty-One: Friends Till the End
Chapter Twenty-Two: Where we Belong
Chapter Twenty-Three: The Bittersweet Truth
Snap!
It happened in a heartbeat. So fast, no one could have seen it. No one normal, that is.
Camryn hadn’t seen it yet, but she was about to. If not for the sudden attack of icy chills and the dizzying headache stopping her in her tracks, she might not have bothered to look around. But by now, she knew that the strange sensations that had been coming over her since childhood always warned of something.
Like now. Like right here, in the middle of the Jewelry Corner, at the Marble Bay Galleria. Something bad was about to happen.
Behind her.
Cam whirled around. Across the store, she saw a girl about her own age, with stringy brown hair, trembling, reaching out toward the case where the most expensive jewelry was locked. The kind of jewelry that a salesperson had to extract for the customer to look at, to try on. Out on that counter, on a plush velvet cushion, sat a sparkling diamond tennis bracelet. But only for a split second.
Cam narrowed her intense gray eyes. In addition to her ability to sense things before they happened, Cam also had incredible powers of sight. She telescoped in on the scene. A tall, thin woman with brassy blond hair was standing next to the girl and drew the salesperson’s attention away. In that instant, the girl quickly swiped the sparkler and slipped it into the right-hand pocket of her peacoat — in the same motion, she reached into her left-hand pocket, withdrew a look-alike bracelet, and replaced the one she’d stolen. The action had taken a fraction of a second.
Although she’d been at the other end of the store and shouldn’t have been able to see any of it Camryn Barnes had just witnessed a shoplifting.
In another corner of the store, the scent hit Alex before she heard the words. Fetid, sweaty, sticky, the smell of fear. Like Camryn, Alex had hyperabilities. She could smell
things that regular people couldn’t. She could hear things, too. Even things that people thought, but didn’t say, like the unspoken pleas of a girl.
Please don’t make me do this! It’s wrong…. I’ll get caught…. I don’t want to….
Behind her.
Alex Fielding realized the panicked thoughts were coming from the other end of the store.
Another voice, this one scratchy, older, female, also unspoken:
She’d better hurry it up! This kid is so slow — where’d we get her from, anyway? We’ve gone over this drill a thousand times. Just pick up the bracelet and stick it in your pocket, and replace it with the one we brought. We really need this!
Alex knew what she had to do.
Bolting to the jewelry case, she wasn’t surprised to find her identical twin sister also on the way. Cam had clearly seen what Alex had heard. No words passed between the twins as they gained on the thieves, who were now halfway to the exit.
Cam intercepted them, blocking their way. Before the robbers realized her move was deliberate, Alex was by her side.
The woman wore big sunglasses and was clearly rattled. With long, thin pincerlike arms, she tried to elbow past the twin-barrier. “Excuse me! Out of the way!”
“Not so fast,” Cam said evenly. “Did you leave something behind at the jewelry counter?”
Cam could see through the sunglasses. The woman’s black bug eyes flashed daggers at her. “No, we did not.” Her voice riveted Cam. Scratchy and harsh, she hissed, “We’re in a hurry. Now move!”
Her own huge, inky-gray eyes flashing, Cam stared her down. “Not until you return what you stole.”
The woman didn’t react, but the girl was in full-tilt panic, her whole body trembling. Alex’s heart went out to her. Whatever heist this duo was pulling off, the girl had been pushed into it.
Reflexively, the girl’s hand went to her pocket, and her jaw dropped. “How … how did you …?” she sputtered.
The woman whirled on the girl. “Lizzie! Just tell them you didn’t steal anything. Let’s go!”
Lizzie bit her lip and started to shake. “I… you …”
“You know she did!” Cam seethed — the pair were in this together! What kind of mother would force her own daughter to steal? “I saw you distract the saleswoman so she could make the switch! How can you —”
Alex’s sharp kick to her shins stopped Cam’s rant.
Give me a sec,
she telepathically communicated to her twin.
Then Alex leaned over to the girl and whispered,
“Let go of the bracelet for a minute. I’m going to help you.”
As the woman began to protest, Cam stared hard at her, using her powers to stun.
It worked — the sunglasses were no shield against Cam’s remarkable gray eyes. The woman became confused and froze for a minute.
Alex went into action.
“Come back to the counter with me,” she directed Lizzie. “Let’s be casual.”
“No! I can’t…. I didn’t want to. Please don’t turn me in.”
“Sssshh, trust me,” Alex whispered as she escorted the terrified girl back to the scene of the crime. “Just pretend we’re friends checking out the baubles. Stand next to me. Keep both hands in front of you, on the counter. Don’t touch anything.”
Petrified now, Lizzie did as she was told.
The saleswoman was at the register and had her back to the counter. It wouldn’t be long before she turned around, however. That was all Alex needed.
Let this work,
Alex prayed silently.
Alex focused on the jewelry in Lizzie’s pocket. She pictured the bracelet drifting up and saw it settling neatly onto the countertop. Alex was just beginning to be comfortable with her powers — like this one, the ability
to move objects just by thinking about them. She waited, fully expecting to hear the gentle clink of diamonds on glass.
Instead, she heard nothing. What was she doing wrong?
In school, when a jock had picked on a mentally challenged kid, Alex had loosened the drawstring on his sweatpants — somehow they’d fallen down, right in the middle of a basketball game. That was one for the yearbook!
And just the other day, she’d found a rusted nail and given a sudden flat tire to a road-rageful driver who’d blasted through a stop sign.
She’d been angry. Is that what it would take to help this girl? Well, she’d work up a righteous fury, then!
It didn’t take much. Alex had just heard that this girl was being forced into stealing. She glanced at the flustered woman Cam had immobilized. What kind of twisted adult used a kid to steal a …
Bracelet! At that moment, Lizzie gasped. The diamond bracelet came wafting out of her pocket, as if buffeted by a gentle breeze, and landed gently on the counter, barely making a sound.
Mission accomplished.
Alex grabbed Lizzie’s bony arm and rushed her out of the store. The blond woman went flying in another direction.
* * *
“We did it! Go, us!” Although her head still ached, Cam was flushed with excitement. “How cool was that? We totally prevented a robbery! Probably, we just saved another young soul from a life of crime, made her really think about her actions, that crime so does not pay.” Jubilant, Cam raised her palm for Alex to slap.
“Kudos overload, anyone?” Alex said grumpily, ignoring her twin’s hand. “We saw, we heard, we intercepted. After that brief commercial break, they’ll probably just rob another store. So don’t get all PAX-TV.”
“What crawled up your caboose?” Cam demanded.
“It wasn’t the girl, and you know it,” Alex replied. “The woman pushed her to do it, and in that little drama, we probably had a negative effect.”
Cam paused. She did know. But she realized Alex knew more. “You heard their thoughts, didn’t you? What were they?”
“The woman was insisting, ‘We really need this.’” Alex stopped.
“They
need
it? That’s so weird. They were well-dressed, they’re not the type —”
“What’s ‘the type,’ Camryn? What would you know about the ‘type’ of people who steal? Are you saying only poor people steal?”
As she always did, Cam took the bait and got defensive.
“Gee, thanks, Als, I so need a reminder of your humble roots, which, of course, equals the ‘good’ twin; versus my privileged upbringing, which equals the ‘bad’ twin. I mean, the last seventy-nine zillion zingers just weren’t enough.”
Unrepentant, Alex stuck out her chin. “Sorry if our life experiences were on the unparallel bars. When it came to the adoption lottery, could
you
help it if your number turned up among the big-bucks Barnes clan? Yet somehow, you managed to make do — the big house, trendy togs, laptop, cell phone, the trinkets of the trendoids. I know, it wasn’t easy….”
Cam grimaced and wound the chain of her sun necklace around her finger tightly. The headaches she suffered after her premonitions lingered. Now Alex was giving her a bigger one.
“Oh, and BTW,” Alex added. “Shoplifter woman? Not that girl’s mom.”
The twins, identical in their pouty lips, gently sloped noses, strong jaws, and intense, charcoal-rimmed gray eyes, were opposite in just about everything else. Including:
Dress: Cam was neatly pressed Banana Re/files/12/56/87/f125687/public/Gap girl; Alex, the draggy, baggy crop-topper.
’Do: Cam’s thick chestnut hair brushed her shoulders;
Alex’s gelled spikes stood at attention, in stripes of auburn, scarlet, and blue.
Demeanor: Cam was naturally upbeat and sunny; Alex usually introspective and moody.
Only now, they were both grouchy. They glared at each other.
For the subject of mothers was a sore one. And a major one. Clarification: the most major one.
Camryn Barnes and Alexandra Fielding had been raised by different families, in different parts of the country. Cam grew up in the upscale suburb of Marble Bay, Massachusetts, with Dave and Emily Barnes. Alex grew up in rural Crow Creek, Montana, with her mom, Sara Fielding. The girls never knew they were adopted. Never knew they were twins. Never knew they were witches, really.
Until last summer, only a few short months ago. The summer they accidentally met, the summer that changed their lives forever. Alex and Camryn learned the truth about themselves — or at least part of it. They learned that they were born Artemis and Apolla into an illustrious family of witches and warlocks. They discovered that their biological father was dead and that they had been separated at birth to prevent evil witches and warlocks from harming them. But of their mother, they knew nothing beyond her name: Miranda. Who she really was, where she was, or even
if
she was — alive or dead.
In the middle of finding all of this out, Alex’s mom, Sara, died. Which is how Alex came to live with Cam’s family. Together, the twins had been trying to piece together who they were, what their powers were, and what they were destined to do with them.
Now the twins walked silently through the mall. After a while Cam blurted, “We should have reported them. You’re right. They’ll probably just go into another store and steal something else.”
“Reported them?” Alex rolled her intense silvery eyes. “And said exactly what? Here’s the thing, Officer. See, we’re witches. And in that witch capacity, I can sometimes hear what people are thinking. And my sister here? Who was in the earring section, with her back turned? Her special witchy gift includes premonitions and abnormally sharp sight, so she eyewitnessed the heist from twenty feet away. Slammin’ plan, Cam-era.”
Cam winced. She so hated when Alex did that mocking thing. Especially when Als was, like, right. She folded her arms. “What’s
your
action plan, then?”
“Inaction.”
“Inaction,” Cam repeated. “So brilliant, yet so bone-headed!”
“What part of ‘we do nothing’ don’t you understand?” Alex challenged, leaning into Cam. “We’re …” She lowered her voice. “Witches. Not cops. We only flat-lined
the robbery because of the girl. She was forced to steal. But we probably only made it worse for her.”
Cam’s head was still throbbing, no thanks to Alex. “Okay, look, you’re probably right. I…”
Alex grew concerned. “What’s the matter? You don’t look so good.”
“I’m feelin’ woozy. You go ahead, I’m going to CVS.”
“Want me to come?” Alex offered.
She didn’t, really. Besides headache relief, she wanted Alex relief. So what if identi-girl was often on target? Big deal — Alex had all the right questions, but none of the answers.
And Cam just needed not to see her own face belligerently staring at her. Head down, she hurried toward the mall drugstore. As she hurtled around the nearest corner, she checked over her shoulder to be sure Alex wasn’t following her.
Bad plan. She crashed full-on into a freestanding cart….
“Whoa! Hey … Watch out!”
… And ricocheted right into the boy who was working at it.