T*Witches: Kindred Spirits (7 page)

“And maybe we should heed it!” Cam swallowed. “Or at least come back in the morning.”

“When what? You can have the same vision in the daylight? Leave your wuss cap at the cellar door. Get a grip and help me open this.”

“I’m not being a wuss!” Cam declared. “In case you’re not counting, this is the second warning we got tonight!”

Alex put her hands on her hips. “Oh, please. That lame poison trail trick was a prank meant to frighten us. Big whoop. What we just experienced was a sign. Karsh taught us that. They tell us what we have to do.”

“That someone needs us,” Cam conceded. She did not want to be needed, not now, not here on Coventry Island. “Alex, we’re not ready,” she pleaded, wanting more than ever to go —

“Home.” Alex finished her thought. “This is it, Cam-a-lot. Our real home. And whatever’s waiting for us inside, or underneath it, ready or not — here we come.”

CHAPTER NINE

LUNASOLEIL

They descended the set of rickety steps into the basement. It was pitch-black and, save for the creaking sounds they made coming down, absolutely still.

And absolutely wrong.

The house had been boarded up, left sunless, bereft, barren, abandoned. Just the shell remained, testimony to the lively, joyous haven it once had been.

So why did Alex detect a mix of ammonia and some kind of wood polish, as if it had been cleaned recently? Cam’s eyes, adjusting easily to the dark, confirmed it: not a cobweb or dust ball in sight. Someone had secretly been taking care of this house, and had gone to some trouble to hide the entrance.

This basement, which might have been used for storage, was empty now. A lonely narrow staircase in the far corner led upstairs.

That, too, seemed wrong. The vision Cam had just had, the cries Alex had just heard had come from
under
the earth, not above it.

Cam scanned the wooden floor, then searched for some kind of hidden opening in the walls. Nothing so far.

She was interrupted by the sound of Alex-the-impatient bounding upstairs. In a flash, she was at the top — frozen, terrified of crossing the threshold into the main living area. Cam hurried up beside her. Together they gently opened the door.

Instantly, they were bathed in a warm, comforting, welcoming feeling. It was, Cam would describe it later, like being in a house of worship: sacred and safe, separated and protected from the outside world. Like the strong embrace of a father, the nurturing arms of a mother. This was Aron and Miranda’s home.

This, according to Karsh and Ileana, was where they had been born. The vast space they were staring at now must have been a warm wonderful room. Brilliant sunlight would have streamed through the skylights and picture windows, now sadly boarded up.

In a corner was a handsome daybed of carved mahogany.
Without turning to face her, Alex put an arm around her sister and they walked cautiously together toward the beautiful divan. There, beside it in a corner stood a uniquely beautiful cradle. Made of bent willow branches, it was wide enough that two infants might easily have rested on the plump cushion inside it.

Years and years ago, before memory, she and Cam had slept side by side in the beautiful handcrafted cradle.

Her heart pounding fiercely, Alex realized that the cushion was the size of the faded patchwork quilt Miranda had brought to her first meeting with them, the fragrant herb-filled quilt Alex had since worn as a shawl. Was wearing now, in fact. It was their baby blanket. Their mother had kept it with her from the day she left her beloved home fifteen years ago, believing her infant daughters were dead — until the day, just over a week ago, that she found them again.

Cam felt Alex’s arm relax, as if the limb itself were sighing.

A memory came to Cam, wispy as a dream. A shadow leaning close. A tall figure with wide shoulders and thick hair, a man she could only make out vaguely, a misty silhouette. He was holding something … a glittering bangle of some sort. Cam’s fingers moved involuntarily to her necklace. The gold amulet was warm.

“Alex?” she said.

“I know,” her twin answered. “The cradle.” They sat down on the daybed.

“Is your moon charm heating up?” Cam asked, her voice breaking, her throat beginning to thicken with tears.

Alex felt the amulet.
Little Artemis
, she heard a voice say. It was faraway and faint. A deep, tender voice that had spoken to her once before.
Wear this, little Artemis. It was made not only with my hands but all my heart and strength
.

Cam’s hot tears washed away the image of the man and began to melt something hard and brittle that had been stuck in her chest since she and Alex stepped off the ferry. She hadn’t been aware of it until this moment, until now when it was dissolving. It had felt like an iron vest. Armor. With it gone, she could breathe again. And feel Alex’s arms hugging her now.

“Welcome home,” her sniffling twin whispered.

Laughing through her tears, Cam returned the embrace. “Welcome home,” she responded.

Artemis, she thought. Alex. The girl of a million hair colors and five defiantly shabby outfits, one of which she wore now: a denim jacket frayed at the bottom, holes randomly puncturing it. Alex — angry, rebellious, impulsive, gutsy. How could the bedraggled, bewildered Montana
tough girl who’d dissed and dismissed Cam the first time they met, then showed up on her doorstep a week later, even be
related
to Camryn Barnes?

Any and all doubts Cam had ever harbored about her exact double — who was the opposite of her in every way — crumbled.

Embracing her sister, Alex was blown away by how shampoo-sweet Cam’s hair smelled. Despite marching through mud,’shouldering branches and bramble, Camryn Barnes was squeaky clean from top to high-end Timberland-protected toes. Cam had somehow managed to brush her hair and gather it in a scrunchie.

Spoiled suburban princess. A part of her still thought of Cam as that, Alex realized. It was the first impression she’d held onto even when she’d learned better. Despite DNA, despite everything they’d been through in the last year, Alex stubbornly clung to her uniqueness. “No one’s like me!” she had declared to friends who’d dared suggest Cam looked like her twin.

That was then, before … All of it now wiped away like chalk dust on a blackboard.

They had shared the same cradle. In this room, they had stared up into their parents’ silvery gray eyes, windows to souls that matched their own.

Camryn and Alexandra — Apolla and Artemis — didn’t know how long they sat there on the daybed. Only
that their hearts were beating in a steady tandem rhythm, and that they were remembering, each in her own way, the gift of the necklaces as their father first clasped them around their chubby infant necks, and of being held safely in their mother’s arms, cloaked in unconditional love.

In some weird way, what Cam and Alex felt mostly — was free.

“Let’s look around.” Cam broke the silence. Alex only nodded. Then, wordlessly, they turned away from each other, as if that could keep the next long-buried memory from surfacing: of their mother’s screams, of being taken from her, of being separated, ripped apart.

At a pace that felt like slo-mo, robotic, like swimming through Jell-O, they explored the cottage. Cam stayed downstairs and floated through the rooms, taking in everything. And nothing.

Alex was drawn up a spiral staircase with a hazardously broken railing. It led to a loft, a balcony, really, lined with shelves where candles, crystals, and books covered in undisturbed dust abounded. Whoever kept the basement clean, had not bothered up here. Two large easy chairs, also timeworn, were separated by a cedar chest.

It looked like a cozy private place where Aron and Miranda might have sat together reading, confiding in each other, or planning for the future. Alex ran her hand
over a chair back and stared at the chest. Her heart quickened as she opened it.

The chest contained linens. A blend of herbal scents hit her and made her well up all over again. Sheets, blankets, pillows — each seemed bathed in its own fragrance.

Beneath the layer of linens there was a hammer, a skein of gold chain, and ingots of gleaming gold. Aron must have made their amulets from gold nuggets like these, maybe designed their pendants right here. The bottom of the chest was filled with books. The one that made Alex laugh was
What to Expect When You’re Raising Twins
. Even witches needed parenting advice!

The one that piqued her interest was
The Erinyes
.

Alex began to read. “The Erinyes, more commonly known as The Furies, lived in the underworld, a place for the cursed. They were outcasts who some believed existed to punish evildoers. The Furies were unstoppable. They were usually represented as three:

Tisiphone, Megaera, and Alecto.

CHAPTER TEN

ANYTHING YOU CAN DO, I CAN DO BETTER

Late the next morning, Alex lay in bed replaying the amazing events of the last few days. Finding LunaSoleil was the high point, the most meaningful. More so for Cam, she thought. Inside their parents’ home, Cam had made her first real connection to Coventry and got it: She belonged here, too.

Yet Shane had tried to prevent that from happening.

The attraction between Shane and Cam was big. But after last night?

Detraction? Bigger.

Wonder-warlock had lied to Cam about LunaSoleil.
So what else was he hiding? Alex ruffled her hair and yawned. Maybe it didn’t matter. After last night, Shane had to be
so over
. Why hurt her sister even more by telling Cam that slimy Shane “forgot” to mention his snaky sweetie?

Oka-a-ay, so maybe Alex should have rethought that. A few hours later she showed up on their doorstep.

Shane’s girlfriend, the violet-eyed velociraptor Alex had seen at the funeral, dramatically draped in a sweeping floor-length cape the exact pale purple color of her eyes, introduced herself as Sersee.

She came with backup, the same pair who’d been sitting with her at Karsh’s service. The shorter one, in an emerald-green cloak, looked like Peter Pan gone punk. A feathery cap of wispy light brown hair barely skimmed the pixie’s neck, around which a barbed-wire necklace was tattooed. Arms crossed insolently, she said, “I’m Michaelina.”

The lumbering, lumpy one in an ill-fitting faded rose cloak was Epie.

Alex disliked them instantly. The snotty remarks directed at Cam and herself during Karsh’s funeral had come from this trash-talking trio —
a crone and her cronies
, she couldn’t help thinking.

“If we’re the crones,” Sersee smiled mischievously,
“what does that make you — crone-wannabes? Or is it crona-bes? Crone-clones, perhaps?”

Ooops. They were mind readers, at least this one was. Quickly, Alex lobbed back, “Is this just a drive-by insult-fest, or should we get the Scrabble set out? How long are you planning to stay?”

Portly Epie stifled a giggle.

Sersee shot daggers at her, then eyed Cam. “Is the evil spawn of Ozzy Osbourne always this rude?”

“Only when there’s a good reason,” Cam shot back breezily. She didn’t know these girls, but something had Alex in diss-mode. She’d back up her sister up.

Sersee’s nostrils flared. “Let’s start again. We were so impressed with your inspiring tributes at the funeral of dear Lord Karsh, we wanted to meet you.”

“Color us met.” Alex started to turn away, but Cam, curious now, stopped her.

“Besides,” Sersee continued, motioning to the bloodstained message still visible on the yellow patch of fabric, “we wouldn’t want you to get the impression that you’re not wanted here. Some of us really hope you stay. For a bit.”

Surprised, Cam’s eyes widened while Alex’s narrowed suspiciously.

Sersee continued. “We wanted to find out if the DuBaer twins of legend were as … special … as we’ve always been told.”

“Special in what way?” Cam wanted to know.

“Why, in every way,” the young witch crooned, beginning to walk away from them toward the water. “Come with me?” she invited.

Cam did. Alex grudgingly followed.

“For instance,” Sersee said when the great lake was in view, “we’ve heard your powers are very precious, and we’d —”

Precocious
, Michaelina silently corrected the spokeswitch.
Means unusually gifted, talented
.

She’s right, Sers
, Epie hesitantly offered.

How very
precocious
of you
, Sersee snarled at her lackeys. Then she realized with dismay that Alex had intercepted the unspoken exchange.
Of course I meant precious
, she sent back, then scrambled the next part of her message, which turned Epie white with fright.

That
got Alex’s attention. Sersee, it seemed, could easily block her from reading her vicious mind. Could she and Cam bar Sersee’s from theirs? Not so far. Advantage Sersee.

Cam’s attention had been drawn, now that they’d reached the shoreline, to a cluster of cliffs miles up the coast and shrouded in mist. Her zoom-lens vision revealed the top of a tower behind the cloudy veil. It must be the tallest structure on the island, she thought. Before she could censor herself, she blurted, “That tower in the distance — is that part of Crailmore?”

Oozing with phony sympathy, Sersee cooed, “You haven’t been there yet? To your own ancestral home? Isn’t your … beloved mother there?”

Snap!
Her tone changed to withering as she made the universal circle-around-the-ear symbol for cuckoo. “Oh, wait, I forgot — Mom’s bonkers!”

Alex lunged for her, but Cam swiftly stepped between them. “If you’re talking about Miranda DuBaer,” she warned, “bad-mouthing her is so
not
the way to go. She’s three times as powerful as when she left.”

Epie’s chunky forehead crinkled. “How do you figure?”

“Do the math —” Cam started.

“She’s got us now,” Alex finished.

Sersee took a step back. “Ooooh, I’m so scared. Let’s see, how did you put it? Color me warned?” she mocked, trying to stare Alex down. She picked the twin least likely to blink.

Michaelina broke the impasse. “So, will you be training for your initiation here?”

Their initiation. Ileana had alluded to it several times but had told them little. They assumed it was a ceremony promoting them to full-fledged witches or something.

Epie piped up, “Who’ll be preparing you now that Karsh is dead as a doornail?”

Cam blanched at blabber-witch’s tact-free bluntness.

“Not Ileana,” Sersee sniped. “Another basket case.”

Eyes flashing, Alex was again ready to pummel the leader of the attack-pack. “We’re as ready as we need to be.”

From the corner of her eye, Cam noticed Michaelina’s sly grin. Sersee tapped her chin. “Really? Why don’t we find out?”

Alex folded her arms and leaned back on a tall boulder, unafraid.

They started with telekinesis. Epie demonstrated. She pointed to a black seashell on the rocky shore and closed her eyes. The shell began to rise and, as if it had turned into a Frisbee, went wheeling into the great lake, hitting the water with a loud splash.

Alex stayed put. Even from this distance, she could outdo that lame exhibition. She focused on a bunch of shells. They skimmed the lake, leapfrogging, leaving a series of ripples in the water.

Sersee rolled her eyes. “Bragging rights to Telekinesis 101 go to Alex. Let’s move on.” She summoned the pixie witch and pointed to a dot on the horizon. “Michaelina, that boat out there — who’s on it?”

Michaelina trained binocular eyes out to sea. She smiled. “It’s the ferry. Our brave Captain Bump Blubber-head is on his way back to the mainland.” Mischievously, she cocked her head. “He doesn’t know about the approaching bad weather. Unfortunate, isn’t it?”

Before the twins could stop her, Michaelina conjured up a violent — very localized! — storm. Buckets of rain gushed from the sky, as if a dam had burst right above the boat. The wind whipped fiercely, and the ferry pitched violently. At any moment, it would capsize. Its lone captain, caught unaware, went flying backward, then forward, then sideways like a pinball bumping against the sides of the boat. Surely, he would go over with the next toss of the boat.

Only … not. His eyes widened, his jaw slackened, he keeled forward — then, stopped, as if the plug of the pinball machine had been suddenly pulled out. He’d stopped dead, but stayed alive aboard his vessel and rode out the “storm.”

“You almost went overboard with that one,” Cam deadpanned.

“What did you do?” Epie was bewildered.

Sersee sneered, “The Sun Queen blinded him, stunned him into stopping in his tracks.”

“Coo —” Epie started but thought better of it.

Michaelina stepped back, a look of alarm — or was it awe? — on her face.

“Let’s pick up the pace,” Sersee commanded, frustrated that the one-ups were backfiring. She decided to make it personal. She pointed at Cam’s head and conjured up a spell. The scrunchie holding back Cam’s hair
slid off. Startled, Cam felt her shiny, silky shoulder-length tresses kink up and fly wildly in all directions, coarse, bristly, like she’d put her finger in an electric socket.

“Bad hair day, Princess?” Sersee mocked her.

Red-faced, Cam quickly tied her bristly, bushy hair back. Then she got angry. She was all set to see how Sersee liked barbecued curls, when Alex got in the way. Alex, who’d always given better than she got, beat her sister to the get-even punch.

“Hey, bony macaroni,” she taunted tall, skinny Sersee. “What’s
up
with your cloak?” Telekinetically, Alex tossed the purple cape into the air. Still fastened around Sersee’s neck, it swirled wildly, battering the startled witch’s face. It looked like a cyclone wrapping itself like a turban around her head.

Sersee’s sputtering rage was muted inside the churning garment. Struggling to hide a grin, Michaelina leaped forward to help her frantic friend peel off the stifling cloak.

“Yeeew, cape hair!” Epie shrieked, pointing at her leader, whose black curls had been mashed into a soaring point, a hairy Leaning Tower of Pisa, a witch’s hat without a brim — or a dunce cap.

“Not to split hairs,” Alex mocked, “but the cone-head look is so five centuries ago.”

Sersee undid the drawstring tie, gasping for breath.
“Okay,” she growled, tearing her velvet cape from Michaelina’s hands and tossing it down like soiled laundry. “So you can toy with telekinesis. Point taken. Now how about transmutation?”

“Only trackers can transmutate,” Epie proudly announced. “Trackers and Sersee.”

“We’ll see what you can really do.” Blazing eyes fastened on the twins, Sersee ignored her lackey. “Or, can’t.”

Beads of perspiration popped out on Cam’s forehead.
Alex! We don’t know how to do this. What if she
—

Her twin remained calm.
We’ll figure it out. Don’t let her see you sweat
.

Sersee knelt at water’s edge and recited a short incantation. She dug into the wet sand along the shoreline and came up with a bumpy-skinned green bullfrog about the size of a grapefruit. “Ribbit, ribbit,” it croaked innocently.

What was she going to do to it? Cam shuddered.

Sersee wrapped her clawlike fingers around the slippery creature, preventing it from leaping away. Shooting a savage smile at Cam and Alex, she said, “This transmutation spell is done silently — a little secret between me and … Kermit here. Oh, and if you feel the urge to try and stop me? Don’t. Because you can’t! So sit back, watch, and be awestruck!”

Alex sucked in a sharp breath.

Sersee did not even move her lips as she stared at her prey. Slowly, horrifically, the frog’s legs began to fold into its belly. Its buggy eyes, bulging with terror, had started to sink into its head. Sersee was turning the frog into something that wasn’t alive.

“You’ll kill it!” Cam shouted. “Alex, move it away from her!”

As she’d been warned, Alex could do nothing to stop her. Sersee’s magick was strong, and fun-time was over. It was all about life and death now.

Frantically looking for something to stop the vicious witch, Cam came up empty. Until … was it possible? Michaelina’s lips were moving. Was she mouthing Sersee’s spell? She nudged Alex, who took the hint, and was horrified at what she heard.

Sersee cracked up at her own sick joke. The bullfrog’s healthy green hue faded to rotted brown, its
rounded body elongated, its bumpy scales broke out into rough bark. Cruelly, Sersee had left its eyes bugging out of the end of what was now a dead log. Triumphantly, she raised it before Cam and Alex like a sword. “Transmutation! Witness the power.”

“Witness this,” Alex snarled, grasping her moon necklace.

Michaelina had accidentally gone all snitch-witch, giving them a clue. Was it enough to help them save the innocent creature?

Cam snatched the log from Sersee and cradled it in her arm, prompting witch-superior to chortle, “Are you going to rock it to sleep? It’s already comatose, or didn’t you notice!”

Cam ignored her, clutched her sun charm, and together with Alex did the only thing they could think of. They recited the same spell Sersee had, substituting good magick for bad, mercy for cruelty.

Let this work, let this work
, Cam prayed, closing her eyes.

It will. It has to
, Alex responded, though she had no idea if it would.

But when their necklaces heated up, straining toward each other to fit together like magnets, the T’Witches knew they’d done it. The powerful magick inside
them — though they hadn’t been taught how to use it — somehow had prevailed.

Alex heard it first. A low, throaty, “Ribbit! Ribbit!”

Cam felt the log moving, constricting, curling into a slippery bumpy ball as the frog once again took its own color and form. Very much alive, it pounced itself out of Cam’s arms and splashed into the sea.

Steam was practically coming out of Sersee’s ears.

Of course, Alex had to rub it in. “Say thank you, Sersee, your PETA membership card is in the mail.”

Cam high-fived her sister.

“Not so fast,” Sersee snarled and snapped her fingers. Out of the woods, a sleek black panther materialized. It wore a studded dog collar, from which a round orange tag hung. “Heel!” she ordered. The animal paused, looked curiously at Cam, then sat at Sersee’s feet.

“This is my new pet,” she cooed malevolently. “A panther. He follows me everywhere!”

Alex started to cough. The smell assaulted her, that same hideous mix of aftershave and cat fur she’d nearly choked on last night. “Your pet needs a bath,” she managed to say between coughing spasms.