T*Witches: The Power of Two (8 page)

How could Cam ever suspect that her devoted, conscientious, tenderhearted mom could be dishonest enough to keep secrets from her—secrets about her birth, her "lost" twin, her very identity.

The newsbreak was over. To the delight of the guy in the next booth, the ball game came on again.

"So what were you doing this morning?" Beth asked casually.

"Nothing much," Cam responded, stuffing her mouth with pizza to keep from blurting out: Just sneaking behind my parents' backs, trying to find out if I was adopted, and whether my mom somehow forgot to tell me that I'm not really hers.

Beth chomped off a piece of crust. "Who knows," she said philosophically. "Maybe Brianna's right about Mrs. Cooper—"

Cam's black-rimmed gray eyes flashed. "No," she said, "Parents don't do that to their children. A real mother would never be that devious. Moms don't lie."

"I'm afraid it's too late."

For a second, Alex didn't know whether it was Mrs. Bass, the librarian, or she'd heard or her own thoughts.

"Too late?" she echoed stupidly. "No, it can't be." Sure her mom was sick, very sick. But if they could get her another doctor, a better doctor, someone who knew more about lung cancer...

Doris Bass flipped open the cover of
Myths and Magic of the Ancient World
and showed Alex the stamped due date. "It was supposed to be back in May. Today is July 12."

"I know. I'm sorry. Can I use the computer, Mrs. Bass?"

"You mean, while I calculate your fine?" The librarian tried to look severe, but didn't quite pull it off. Of course I might go easy on you if you give me a good explanation for why you kept the book so long. I'd like to hear that you truly enjoyed it, that you're fascinated by mythology, that it changed your life."

"All three," Alex blurted. "Is it okay if I use the computer to send an e-mail?"

The librarian sighed and pushed back her chair. "How's your mom doing?" she asked, leading Alex to the computer desk.

"Not great." Now why had she said that? Did the whole world have to know? Right now, there was just one person she wanted to tell, one person who might be able to help. Correction:
Had
to help.

"I heard," Mrs. Bass said sadly, adding, "I'm sorry."

Alex pulled the note from her pocket with Cam's email.

"Give Sara my love. Tell her I'll stop by the hospital on Sunday," the librarian said, leaving Alex to the library's computer.

Alex slid into the chair as Mrs. Bass returned to her desk. She typed in Cam's address. Then she paused. What message? What was she going to say? Hey, remember me? SOS. My mom is dying.

Why was she doing this, anyway? She didn't
really
know the tourist girl. It wasn't like they were friends. They'd just...

They'd just showed up at the same place at the same time.

They'd just magically repaired a broken ride with their eyes, minds, and desperate determination. And some weird rhymes that came out of nowhere.

Who knew what else they might be able to do together?

Alex's hands were shaking. What did she think, that Camryn same-birthday Barnes would hop the next broomstick to Crow Creek? That they'd stand at Sara's hospital bed and repair Alex's mom the way they'd fixed a broken Ferris wheel bar?
If
they'd fixed the bar. Which could not really have happened.

Money. Alex tried to clear her head. That's what this was about. If Cam's family plunked down a hundred dollars for a fun day at the faux frontier, obviously the Barnes brood had cash to burn. And Alex wanted it. Sara needed it. They had to get a better doctor, move Sara to a bigger hospital, do something!

She banged out a message.

Hi. It's me, Alex Fielding, your "twin" from Big Sky. Only kidding. The thing is I need a favor. A big one. My mom is really sick. If you're interested, call me. Fast!

She tapped out her phone number, hit SEND, leaned back, and had an instant shame attack. Could she be any lamer? She just exposed her private business to a stranger, posted a personal 911? Ugh. Shoulders slumped, head in her hands, Alex sat there for a couple of minutes, overwhelmed by embarrassment and regret.

Then, just as she pushed back her chair, the computer made a chiming noise.

Hey, it's Cam. I can't believe it. I was just thinking of you!

Alex's heart leaped with excitement. That was fast! Quickly, she responded.

This is almost as weird as what happened at the Ol' Wagon Wheel! You know, us being there at the same time.

Totally, came the answer, a second later. Sorry about your mom. Don't think I'm crazy, but does she have gray eyes?

Brown, Alex typed. My mom's got brown eyes—and no medical coverage. That's why I was wondering...

Her fingers slipped from the keyboard. Suddenly, she was seized by a stomach pain that made her curl over and moan. Her hands went clammy. Her face felt wet. Emptied of hope, her chest felt suddenly hollow—and then an icy grief filled it.

"Alexandra?" Mrs. Bass rushed over. "What is it? What's wrong?"

"My mom," Alex gasped. "I've got to get to the hospital. Right now."

Sara was alive. Just barely.

Alex rushed into the room, almost colliding with an old, white-haired doctor who was hurrying out. There was a crackle of sparks between them as his lab coat brushed her arm.

She raced past the curtained beds of strangers to the end of the ward. A nurse sat at her mother's bedside, moistening Sara's lips with an ice cube.

"What happened?" Alex asked her.

"We've been trying to reach you," the woman said. With a tart clunk, she dropped the ice back into a metal bowl of melting cubes, and stood abruptly. "She's very weak. I'll page the doctor on duty. He'll explain."

"Wasn't that him? Didn't he just walk out?" Alex asked, but without answering, the nurse bolted into the hall.

"Alex?" Her mother's eyes were slits, as if she hadn't the strength to fully lift her lids. "Baby, I'm so glad you got here." Sara's bony hand, pale and red-knuckled, reached for her. "I'm sorry, Alex. Please forgive me."

"For what? Mom, what happened? Is the chemo making you sick again?"

"I tried." Sara grasped Alex's hand. Her touch was dry and crinkly. "You're the most wonderful thing that ever happened to me, baby, and I tried to keep my promise. I tried with all my might, Alex, to be a good protector, to keep you safe."

"I'm safe, Mommy," Alex whispered. "Really, I'm okay. It's you we've got to take care of."

With effort, Sara shook her head. "Listen to him, Alex. He looks odd—scary sometimes, but he's good."

"Miss Fielding?" Alex turned to the doctor striding toward them. He wasn't looking at her. He was flipping through the pages of a medical chart.

It wasn't the same doctor she'd nearly crashed into, the one who needed static guard on his coat. This one was much younger. He had bright red hair and thick glasses.

Was this who her mom had meant? He didn't look all that odd and, certainly, not scary. More like a dork, a geek.

"Are you the daughter?" he asked.

Alex nodded, wishing the guy would look up.

"I understand the hospital's been trying to reach you."

"I stopped at the library," Alex said. Her anger at his casual attitude was instantly tempered with guilt.

"Yes, well," he said, finally facing her. "Er, how old are you?"

She knew better than to say fourteen. "Eighteen," she lied, hoping her mom wouldn't contradict her.

"It's her liver—" the redheaded doctor said.

"Her lungs, you mean?"

"The cancer, Miss Fielding, has metastasized. It's spread to other organs. Primarily her liver. I'm afraid—" He glanced at Sara, who seemed to be sleeping now. "Let's step outside."

Carefully, Alex released her mother's hand, setting it down gently on the hospital blanket. She followed the doctor out into the corridor, which was where he told her that Sara would not last the night.

Even though a few things weren't adding up, Cam was not caving. Not to Beth, or to the tiny but insistent nagging in her own brain. Because there had to be some rational explanation for what she hadn't found in the FAMILY PAPERS file in her dad's office. Or any other files she'd looked at. Or among the hundreds of family photos she'd eyeballed.

It's probably like that forest-for-the-trees thing, she thought. When you're drowning in details, looking for little things, you always miss something. In this case, something as obvious as proof of her birth.

Still, she couldn't help running through the checklist in her head. No pictures from her mom's pregnancy. No birth certificate—except Dylan's. For whom there was also a newborn picture. And the photo with the tiny footprint.

And all that meant exactly what? Hardly a 180 of all she knew to be true.

And now there's Alex. Who looks like her, with whom she might have done some surreal thing at the Ferris wheel. Who, magically, had been online the exact same moment she'd checked her e-mail. Who'd sent an urgent message. Until the moment, that is, that Alex had stopped suddenly.

For some reason, that abrupt disconnect had prompted Cam to just do it. Go for the obvious. Talk to her parents.

Maybe, she thought, coming down the steps from her bedroom to the den, it was because of what Alex had said. That her mom, her brown-eyed mom, was really sick and didn't have medical coverage. Alex was clearly desperate, and even though they probably weren't really related, Cam felt bad for her.

So, maybe, right after she cleared up the little matter of her birth—which sounded so weird even thinking about it--she'd tell her parents about the coincidence of meeting Alex. And ask if they could help in some way.

As Cam hit the bottom step, she stopped short, gripped by a sudden attack of the "what ifs."

What if... her parents didn't react as she expected them to?

What if... they didn't throw their heads back and laugh at her outrageous question?

What if... there really
was
some deep dark family secret she didn't know?

That last "what if" made Cam laugh. She could just hear her parents going, "Oh, right, we forgot to tell you, you're not our real child. And yeah, you did come with a twin, only we didn't take that one. Now, could you go load the dishwasher?"

She shook her head at the ridiculousness of it. Then she grinned. Of course her mom would say, "Oh, Cami, sweetheart, you couldn't possibly have thought that."

And her dad's teasing rejoinder would be something like, "If you believe that, wait, I'd like to introduce you to Mr. S. Claus, who's got some presents for you."

Then they'd probably march her up to the attic and present some box she hadn't noticed. Some box marked THE BIRTH OF CAMRYN: SUPERSTAR! Or something that tipped the Velveeta-meter in pure, processed cheesiness. And they'd all have this giant laugh about it afterward.

Convinced now, Cam strode down the corridor toward the family room, where her parents were watching TV. Correction: where her dad was on the couch, channel surfing and flipping through a client's file.

And her mom was curled up in the armchair, reading a book.

Cam paused, looking from one to the other. Her dad's wrinkled forehead, his stubbly chin, walrus mustache, her mom's cornflower-blue eyes, her curtain of blond bangs. Seeing their faces was as natural to her as breathing.

"Hey, look who's here." Her dad shot her a huge smile. "Off the phone
and
off-line already? That's got to be some kind of record."

"She has a lot of friends. Stop teasing her," Emily said.

Dave patted the couch. "Come join us, we're trying to find something besides the Marleigh Cooper story on TV, but we're not having much luck. The only bit of 'news' is that our own Marble Bay Music & More store is offering a substantial reward for anyone with information. Who knows? Maybe we'll get lucky and there'll be a break in the case."

Cam inched into the room. Her eye fell on a family photo. Like a zillion others scattered around the house, it was a shot of the four of them from one of their vacations. All were holding tennis racquets. Cam shifted uncomfortably.

Emily looked at her expectantly. "What's up, sweetie pie?"

"I was sorta coming down to see you guys," Cam stammered. What was up with the nerves-relapse? "I have something weird—that is,
really
weird--to ask you."

Concern drifted across her dad's face, but he said nothing.

Cam's heart began to pound. "It's really, really important." Why had she tacked that on?

But when her dad said, "I have a feeling I know what it's about," Cam had to laugh.

"I don't think so, Daddy."

"It's a family question, isn't it?" Dave sounded pretty sure of himself.

Cam was taken aback. "How'd you know?"

Emily remarked, "Think you're the only one in the family with 'sixth sense'? Where do you think you got it from? Your dad's pretty perceptive."

Cam's jaw fell open. Is it remotely possible they know? How could they? And then she realized—professional snoop that she
wasn't
, she'd probably left some telltale signs of her search around. Bet they figured she'd been looking for something. But, could they really know for what?

Dave closed his eyes and put his finger to his temple, doing a really bad imitation of a psychic. "You want to know about Dylan," he declared.

"And," Emily broke in, "what exactly is going on with his room? Did we really send him away for a month just so we could take down all his posters, change his wallpaper, and toss out his old furniture?"

Cam couldn't believe what she was hearing. Just at the moment she felt this huge wave of relief, thought she was totally in sync with her parents, off they veered in another direction entirely.

"He'll act shocked when he gets home," Emily was warming to the topic of Dylan's room, "but I know my son. Within a week, he'll love it. And sweetie, if you want, after we're done with his, we can start thinking about redecorating yours, too. Maybe get rid of that extra bed in your room. Beth hardly sleeps over anymore—usually, it's the whole bunch of you in the basement."

Cam's stomach started to churn. Didn't she say her question was important? And changing the wallpaper in Dylan's room was her mom's guess? She knows her son, Cam thought, but she doesn't know me at all.

"It's not about Dylan. Or his room. Or my room," she said heatedly. "It's something... else."

Both her parents were now looking at her with anticipation.

"Was I..."she started.

At that instant, Dave caught her eye, and Cam suddenly knew. Her mom had been blathering about home décor, but joking aside, her dad knew something else was up with her.

"Now I feel stupid for even asking this..."

Emily broke into a grin. "As a famous newsperson once said, 'There are no stupid questions. Only stupid answers.'"

"Was I adopted?"

There, she'd said it. Her words hung in the air, three little orphans, floating above them, with nothing to anchor them.

Emily Barnes turned white.

David Barnes's jaw dropped.

Neither said a word. The only sound in the room was the thud her mom's book made after it slid off her lap and hit the hardwood floor. It wasn't until Cam's eyes fell on the cover that she lost it.

Over the image of the identical infant twins facing each other in the womb, was the book's title:
I Know This Much Is True
.

At that moment, Cam knew this: Her whole life had been one big lie.