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Authors: Randi Reisfeld,H.B. Gilmour

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BOOK: T*Witches: Destiny's Twins
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Was she here, too? Was that possible? The tent curtain
was thrown open. But it wasn’t her guardian witch. Instead, Amanda and Sukari wandered in and were immediately sidetracked by Lucinda and Evan, who introduced themselves. In a moment, an animated chat was going on. Others showed up. Friends from school, including the ex-bullies club of Eddie Robins and Skeevy Stevie, plus his “girl,” Nadine, and more of Dylan’s posse, the kids she most often ate lunch with. There were more, some she wasn’t even sure she knew.

It’s the free fun and food they’ve come for,
she caught herself thinking — until another voice rang in her head. Cam’s.
Just ’cause we’re not being viewed anymore doesn’t mean you get to be dishonest,
her sister had scolded on the dock.
Okay,
Alex had to admit. Maybe it wasn’t
just
the freebies that had drawn this crowd. Maybe they were really here for her.

It didn’t matter, though, did it? Whatever the reason, everyone seemed psyched and ready to party. And the happy excitement they brought with them was the real deal.

Released by Lucinda, Cade was behind her now, and his arms were around her. Alex leaned back into his chest, watching everything and everyone. She could not wipe the grin off her face.

*        *        *

In the tent next door, her identical twin wore an identical grin. The music, supplied by a neighbor doubling as DJ spinner-scratcher, was pulsing, loud, fast, and fun. And Cam was dancing, first with Jason, then with Jason and Beth, then with Jason, Beth, Brianna, and Kristen. So were the dozens of others, to music that mirrored the upbeat mood. Very Cami, very much, very all the way!

As she moved and swayed to the beat, Cam felt herself shedding the stress of the past. Had it been an entire month? She’d been smack in the middle of family feuds, curses, rescues, and revelations. She’d dealt with Amaryllis, and Sersee, and Shane again, this time seeing him for who and what he really was. She’d been bombarded with questions, challenges, urgent decisions, life-or-death choices, and finally, she’d been initiated. She’d become what everyone on Coventry believed she was born to be.…

Now that she was back, now that she was here, literally in her own backyard, secure in her very own spotlight, the surprise for her — yes, another one — was that she didn’t feel as if she was in “another world.” Her Coventry life was simply another part of her. A vital piece of the total Cam. And she was okay with that.

“Close your eyes and open wide.” When so directed
by Brianna, the boss, one did exactly as ordered. Cam was rewarded with a spicy tuna roll: scrumptious! It was part of the buffet, the kind of smorgasbord she’d have ordered had she been in charge of this party. As if he’d read her mind, Dave winked and pretended to display empty pockets. “Your mom went all out,” he joshed. “Only the best for our sunshine girl.”

He was so not exaggerating. Cam and her buds had their pick of delicious exotic fare — from creamy pastas to succulent sushi, delicately wok-sautéed meats, mounds of shrimp, lobster claws and clams, baby vegetables and mesclun salads, melons and mousses and cream puffs … it went on and on!

At the end of the buffet table were the family photos. Which had the totally desired effect: Cam-barrassment! There was three-year-old Cami at the beach, sausaged into a frilly pink polka-dot bikini, complete with floppy sun hat, sturdy little thighs, and chunky fingers gripping a plastic pail and shovel. Six-year-old Cam proudly and toothlessly holding up the dollar bill the tooth fairy had left her. And did Emily have to include the absolute worst seventh-grade hair ever? What had possessed her to perm it, anyway? Oh, well, Cam laughed — it was all part of a surprise party. The pics were nothing if not giggle-inspiring.

“Where’d you get this one?” Dylan, who’d arrived to
check out her tent, pointed to a framed photo he’d never seen before. Quick as a flash, Dave was at his son’s side to respond, “I found it in a thrift shop. The old guy looked like he was holding twins. I couldn’t help picking it up.”

Cam slipped her arm around her dad’s waist and whispered in his ear, “I’m glad you did. I’ll keep it forever.”

Dave — were those tears in his eyes? — couldn’t keep the words inside. “I hope you’ll keep me forever, too. I mean … you’ll always be … my little girl —”

His serious expression gave way to a helpless smile. “Go on, have fun,” he directed, then turned and briskly exited the tent. Cam watched him go, sniffling back the quick itch of her own tears. She was doing as Dave had ordered when a sudden premonition, followed by an amazed shriek, sent her bolting outside.

The frenzied cry was Brianna’s. “O.M.G. He did it!” she shrilled as Cam emerged into the candlelit twilight. Alex had rushed outside, too. “Daddy must have sent him!” Bree declared, wriggling with excitement.

Moving toward them was a trio of costumed guests — all of them in flowing velvet robes. The figure in the center was the one Bree had lost it over. Not even a plumed pirate hat and an eye patch could disguise Brice Stanley. In addition to more than twenty movies, his famous face had appeared on the covers of countless
magazines under banners that read
HUNK OF THE YEAR, OUR FAVORITE HOTTIE
, and
HOLLYWOOD’S STUDLIEST STAR
.

Brianna’s father had produced Brice Stanley’s most recent movie — and at Bree’s wheedling and whining insistence had invited the Six Pack to the premiere. Of course, the manic cat-girl would take credit for his showing up.

And just as well, Cam thought, as she recognized the women flanking Coventry’s most successful warlock.

“It’s your ‘guardian witch.’” Beth, who’d followed Cam out of the tent, recognized Ileana from the mall. Brice’s other companion had the same piercing gray eyes as the twins and, curling from under her burgundy hood, the same sunny auburn hair.

“Hi, Brice! Remember me? Eric Waxman’s daughter —” Ignoring the women, Bree had managed to cut the actor out of the herd. With her scrawny arm locked in his, she began to shepherd Brice possessively through the awestruck crowd.

Ileana inserted herself between her cousins and former charges, who were now — according to Coventry law — her equals. “Happy birthday, T’Witches,” she murmured. “I hope you don’t mind our crashing. Two stellar occasions in the same day. We just couldn’t stay away.”

The commotion had attracted Dave and Emily. As Cam’s adoptive mom turned questioningly toward her
husband, the woman in the burgundy cape came toward them.

The beautiful stranger extended her hand. “I’m Miranda DuBaer, a friend of Mr. Stanley’s. He and his date, my niece Ileana, asked me to come along. I hope you don’t mind. I’ve been wanting to meet the two of you for a while now —”

Cam heard and gasped. Alex heard Miranda, too, and was surprised at how her stomach dropped with dread at even the possibility that their birth mom’s presence might upset Dave and Emily.
But they don’t know who she is,
Cam telegraphed her twin, although she was experiencing the exact same fear.

Which soared to queasy terror when Dave’s mouth fell open, and Emily burst into sudden tears. They knew! One look at Miranda had told them who she was: Camryn and Alex’s birth mother.

“Get over yourselves,” Ileana hissed at the twins. “Have you learned nothing? Our lives are pledged to heal, not hurt.”

“I’m so pleased to meet you,” Miranda was saying to Dave and Emily. “You’ve reared two wonderful girls. Two very special children who desperately needed your love. Yours,” she emphasized, holding their stunned gazes. “No one could have done it better. I came especially to assure you of that. And to thank you — with all my heart.”

“Oh, no,” Cam groaned.

“We’ve got to do something,” Alex asserted.

“The Lethe spell,” Cam remembered.

“Got herbs?”

“Valerian root,” Cam said, reaching into the pocket of her robe as they hurried toward Emily and Dave. “And a smidge of rosemary for contentment and love.”

“Hey, you guys.” Alex went for bright and carefree. “We just wanted to say how incredibly flawless this bash is.”

“Awesome,” Cam agreed with all her heart. “I couldn’t have planned it better myself.”

“This is Miranda DuBaer,” Dave said, glancing nervously at his wife.

Emily grabbed his hand and held on for dear life. “You should meet her,” she told the twins. “We think … she’s —”

“My aunt!” Ileana appeared beside them. “By the way, stupendous blowout.”

“Utterly magical,” Miranda agreed. She reached out and took Cam’s hand, which had been coiled around the rosemary and valerian root. Taking the herbs, Miranda turned back to Emily and Dave. “Your garden is lovely. Perhaps you could show me around it sometime. I’m very interested in herbs —”

Cam got it!

Recite the Lethe incantation with me,
she urged Alex, as their birth mother showed the powerful herb for forgetfulness to Emily, who, as Miranda had known she would, picked it up to examine it, and also handed it to Dave.

A moment later, Emily blinked lazily. “Excuse me,” she said to Miranda. “Forgive me. This is terribly embarrassing, but I can’t seem to remember your name.”

“Miranda,” Alex told her happily. “She’s Brice Stanley’s date’s aunt.”

“Oh.” Emily’s smile was warm. “Of course,” she said. “How silly of me.”

As Ileana and Miranda strolled away, Cam rushed into Emily’s and Dave’s arms. The family who had reared her had just met the family that she and Alex had been born into, though her adoptive parents had already forgotten. “Tonight is beyond special,” she whispered to Dave and Emily.

“Thank you,” Alex said, her smile huge, her voice breaking, as, for the second time that night, she piled onto the hugging trio. “We’ll never forget all you did for us.”

It was nearly midnight when Cam slipped away from the party. She wandered out the front door, where she gathered her robes and settled on the front steps.
Overwhelmed was not a favorite stop on the CAm-trak express, and she’d passed that station hours ago. She needed a quiet moment now and took it to inhale the crisp air of a perfect fall New England night. And to let the events of the past month now whirling in her head settle into some order she could deal with.

She looked up at the sky. There was a full moon tonight. And soon it would be joined by a pink strip of dawn. Sun and moon would share the sky.

Instinctively, she clasped her charm, zipping it slowly back and forth on its chain, the hammered-gold amulet so like her sister’s.

Music wafted over the fence from the dual tents out back.

Two parties, Cam was thinking. Two families, two futures … Tonight it had all become one.

She sensed Alex coming before she actually heard her sister’s footsteps or felt the hand on her shoulder. There was nothing they needed to say to each other, aloud or telepathically.

They could think their separate thoughts, Alex mused, as she sat down beside her sister, separate thoughts that were probably as identical as they were.

Neither of them had imagined in her wildest dreams that Emily and Dave could have accomplished all this.
What they’d proved, though the loving couple probably hadn’t even meant to, was how well they knew both their daughters, and how much they loved them both. Dave and Em weren’t witches. They had no special powers. But reading human hearts, that was real magick.

And by welcoming Miranda and Ileana, Dave and Emily had given the twins the most treasured gift of all: the permission to be what they were. Daughters of two families, finally together. Twins. Witches. T’Witches.

Only one thing overshadowed the importance of all that. “Yo, birthday girls!” Dylan called from inside the house. “Come on in, dudes. Let’s do cake!”

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

H.B. Gilmour
is the author of numerous bestselling books for adults and young readers, including the
Clueless
movie novelization and series;
Pretty in Pink,
a University of Iowa Best Book for Young Readers; and
Godzilla,
a Nickelodeon Kids Choice nominee. She also cowrote the award-winning screenplay
Tag.

H.B. lives in upstate New York with her husband, John Johann, and their misunderstood dog, Fred, one of the family’s five pitbulls, three cats, two snakes (a boa constrictor and a python), and five extremely bright, animal-loving children.

Randi Reisfeld
has written many bestsellers, such as the
Clueless
series (which she wrote with H.B.); the
Moesha
series; and biographies of Prince William, New Kids on the Block, and Hanson. Her Scholastic paperback
Got Issues Much?
was named an ALA Best Book For Reluctant Readers in 1999.

Randi has always been fascinated with the randomness of life.… About how any of our lives can simply “turn on a dime” and instantly (
snap!
) be forever changed. About the power each one of us has deep inside, if only we knew how to access it. About how any of us would react if, out of the blue, we came face-to-face with our exact double.

From those random fascinations, T*Witches was born.

Oh, and BTW: She has no twin (that she knows of) but an extremely cool family and a cadre of BFFs to whom she is totally devoted.

BOOK: T*Witches: Destiny's Twins
4.17Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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