T*Witches: Destiny's Twins (5 page)

“No way!” Cam shouted. Then added less surely, “She wouldn’t.”

Alex turned toward the bed again as if she were going to telepathically hoist and lob the book across the room at the troublemaker. To add authenticity to the threat, she focused on the thick volume forcing it to fly up into her hand.

“Stop!” Amaryllis hollered. And when Alex faced her, the girl stuck out her Alex chin and said, “I mean, it’s your Initiation month. Vengefulness, unjust punishment,
bullying a lesser witch — which I am; I’m not even scheduled for Initiation yet — all that is totally frowned upon. Big time. It’ll cost you major stones. You don’t want to foul up your viewing by doing anything sleazy to me.”

“Cam might not,” Alex said, letting the handbook drop and hoping the door to her thoughts was still locked, “but since I’m not going back to Coventry, I’ve got nothing to lose, have I?”

Her impersonator studied her, trying to make out whether she was serious or not. And then, as clearly as if she’d spoken them aloud, Amaryllis’s thoughts became transparent to Alex.

If Alex was telling the truth, then at least part of her mission was successful, the clone mused. She’d kept one twin from being initiated!

But would that be enough? Would it satisfy her demanding master?

It had to, Alex heard the girl tell herself. Hadn’t Lord Thantos said that stopping one of them would cut their skill and strength in half?

Despite the bluster, Amaryllis had begun to tremble.

As she heard the witch’s desperate thoughts and read the fear in her eyes, Alex’s anger began to cool. In its place came an unexpected pang of regret. She felt — what was it?

Shame.

The emotion floored her, flooded her. She felt ashamed at having fooled the frightened clone into believing that she was going to skip out on her Initiation. Amaryllis was counting on it, hoping that it would appease their vicious uncle.

Wisdom, intuition, trust, courage, and honesty. The virtues on which she and Cam were being judged came back to her. She’d definitely lapsed on honesty. And probably trust. And what kind of courage did it take to taunt a terrified servant?

She was about to confess the lie to Amaryllis when the arrogant young witch dismissed her with a wave of her hand and a smile of pure malice. “Good idea. Skip the trip. Totally nothing to lose,” she assured Alex.

And then, as if she’d suddenly realized that Alex could read her thoughts, Amaryllis quickly scrambled them — and moved on to the next ploy.

“You know why Cade
pretends
to care about you? Because he pities you! Like, who wouldn’t? Talk about a raw deal. While Cam was being fed with a silver spoon, you were pitifully scraping peanut butter out of a jar. She got to keep both of her adoptive parents — and you got to be an orphan! And weren’t you the manipulating babe to spill all that to Cade?” The vixen turned to Cam. “She totally smeared you!”

Alex shook her head. “Not,” she told her sister. “The snake’s just doing her job.”

“Right you are.” Amaryllis jumped on it. “This con wasn’t my idea. It’s strictly a family affair. I’m just your uncle’s gofer. Just trying to do him a favor. Don’t murder the messenger, okay?”

Cam ignored her. “This is too weird,” she told her sister. “How do we get her out of that whack getup?”

“What are you saying?” Alex wanted to know. “She looks like me. What’s whack about that?”

“Okay, not whack, just confusing,” Cam back-pedaled. “I keep flashing between what she really looks like and this creepy version of you.”

“Wire your uncle,” Amaryllis suggested sarcastically. “He did this, he can undo it. And believe me, it was no day at the beach being either of you.” She held up her hands, making talking gestures with them, opening and closing her fingers like bird beaks. “Bicker, bicker, bicker,” she said.

“I’ve had it.” Cam turned her back on the smoke-smeared imitation of Alex and pretended more anger than she felt. “Let’s get this over with. What should we do with her?”

She touched her sun charm and saw that Alex had caught the move and held her moon amulet now.
Like
really, what are we going to do with her?
Cam posed the question through the peephole to her twin.
Should we just run a Traveler’s spell on her and send her back exactly as she is?

Alex’s quick answer surprised her.
Too harsh. The bravado is strictly bogus. It’s all an act. Check it out yourself. She’s scared stiff.

Check it out? Her thoughts are scrambled,
Cam sent back. But
could
she tune in to Amaryllis? she wondered.

Ileana had told them that their powers would take extreme turns now. They’d be able to do more than ever before — and, just as unpredictably, tank. During this sacred time, their gifts could peak suddenly or plummet.

It seemed to be happening — the upswing, anyway. Alex had done an awesome Einstein on the door-and-peephole idea. And Cam had come up with the right incantation to see through her sister’s look-alike. Plus she was getting good at picking up unspoken thoughts.

She focused in on Amaryllis again, this time with her eyes
and
her ears.

Colors danced inside her closed eyelids. Bright, almost blinding lines that reminded Cam of spilled paint running in a hundred directions at once — streaming, bubbling, exploding.

She concentrated harder, listened more intensely,
and became aware of noise — crackling, spitting, swirling sounds that accompanied the jerky movements of the painfully bright lines. The churning static began to sound like … disconnected words … fragments of phrases.

Suddenly, Cam’s head swam with the frightened but defiant young witch’s desperate thoughts.

A sentence broke through the senseless clamor:
How am I going to get out of this?

And then another:
What’s Lord Thantos going to do to me?! He’s already told me there’s no going back. I’m stuck in this look for at least a month!

And then she heard:
They’re supposed to be so excellently ethical and devoted to the Coventry creed
—

Amaryllis was thinking of them, Cam realized, of her and Alex.

Maybe they’d treat me — not with forgiveness exactly. That would take more mercy than fledglings are usually capable of — but maybe … compassion?

Fat chance,
Amaryllis decided. The racket grew loud again. Cam barely heard:
How can I soften them up? What do I have to bargain with?

The cornered girl brightened suddenly. A single word rose above the clatter of fear and desperation in her mind. Cam glanced quickly at Alex to see whether she’d heard it, too.

“Shane,” Alex said.

“Shane again,” Cam noted, disappointed.

“You guys are good,” Amaryllis acknowledged. “It’s not what you think. Shane, yes. Old news, no. Remember how you said, ‘Give me news, not history’? Well, this is the genuine dish.” She lifted two fingers in a V. “Witch’s honor.”

“Let’s hear it,” Alex said skeptically.

“First let me get this straight. You,” Amaryllis said to her, “are definitely
not
going back to Coventry. No Initiation for you. Have I got that right?”

“Not exactly,” Alex murmured.

Amaryllis turned white.

“The scoop on Shane,” Cam demanded.

“What about
me
?” Amaryllis moaned. “I can’t go home now. Not with your uncle knowing I botched it. It’s bad enough that my transmutation can’t be reversed even on Coventry, that I’ve gotta stay in my twin-skin for a whole month. Now I’m going to have to hang out in dork world looking like you!”

“Maybe not,” Alex said. She did, after all, owe the girl something.

“But first you’ve got to spill your Shane secret,” Cam cut in.

Amaryllis checked them out. “Trust is one of the virtues you’re going to be viewed on,” she reminded them. “If I trust you, you better not betray me —”

“Deal,” Alex agreed.

“Dish,” Cam said.

“Well, for starters,” their clone began cautiously, “he is not what you think. I mean, you believe he’s loyal to Lord Thantos, right?”

Cam nodded.

“Nuh-uh,” Amaryllis crooned, sounding embarrassingly like her, Cam thought. “Shane A. Wright is not a fan of your uncle’s. There is no love lost between his family and yours, trust me.”

“His family? But his parents threw him out when he turned against Thantos,” Cam pointed out.

“Nuh-uh,” Amaryllis said again.

“Could you not do that?” Cam asked.

“Go on,” Alex urged. “You were saying something about Shane’s family —”

“What’s in it for me?” Amaryllis wanted to know.

Cam and Alex looked at each other.

“Safe passage back to Coventry,” Cam offered.

“And I’ll keep up the pretense,” Alex promised, “that I’m a no-show for the last leg of our Initiation. At least until you can pack your bags and get out of Crailmore.”

“That way no one will know your trip was a washout. How’s that?” Cam asked.

After a moment’s consideration and a searching look at their faces, Amaryllis continued with relish. “Okay.
Here’s the dirt. Shane’s parents? Supposed to have dumped him? Never happened. They just keep a low profile — and for good reason. They don’t want any DuBaer thinking that their son wants to get next to Big T — which your old pal Shane’s been trying to do for years and years. It’s almost embarrassing how the boy sucks up to your uncle. But Lord Thantos doesn’t, repeat does not, trust Shane A. Wright.”

“Thantos doesn’t trust anybody,” Cam noted.

Amaryllis shrugged. “Hey, I haven’t been initiated yet so maybe my instincts are whack. But if your unc has a special place in his heart for Shane, trust me, it’s in the deepest, darkest, bloodiest chamber.”

“But why?” Cam asked, then shuddered as much at the wickedly triumphant look suddenly lighting Amaryllis’s face as at her sinister words.

“Whoops! That’s a no-no!” the Coventry witch gloated. “You know the rules. I can’t answer any of your questions during your Initiation month. But you can answer one of mine. How am I getting home?”

CHAPTER EIGHT

WISDOM AND INTUITION

They were wiped out.

The Traveler’s spell had not been as easy as they’d imagined. They’d performed it before, but only to transport
themselves.
Achieving liftoff for Amaryllis turned out to be more difficult. And having her hanging around was even worse.

Thantos’s little accomplice whined and jeered at their every failed attempt to get rid of her. It was nearly midnight before they hit on the right combination of words, stones, herbs, and, most important, attitudes. It turned out they needed to be positive. Only when they were too worn out to waste time or energy on annoyance, anger, frustration, or any other negative thought or
emotion, did the spell work. Amaryllis split Marble Bay shortly after twelve.

She was there complaining about their lack of will and skill at 12:04; at 12:05, without so much as a buh-bye, she was gone. By then neither Cam nor Alex was up for a gab session; sleep and silence were what they’d both craved.

But they struck out on both counts.

Cam tossed and turned and stared up at the streetlight-lit tree shadows dancing on the ceiling while her mind rambled relentlessly. The convo in her head went back and forth between two subjects: Shane and sweet sixteen.

Okay, Shane had told a lie about being cast out by his family. No biggie. Lying was what the boy did best. Believing his lies was her specialty, Cam mused ruefully.

But how was his family involved? That was the newsy part of Amaryllis’s trade-in. According to Thantos’s hench-witch, Shane’s family, the Wrights, cared about what the DuBaers thought. Not what Thantos thought, but the DuBaers, Amaryllis had specified.

Whatever Shane hoped to gain by winning their vicious uncle’s trust would apparently affect his whole family.

Why would Shane’s parents not want
any
DuBaer to
know that their son was trying to get on the good side of Thantos?

Was there some kind of family feud going on between the Wrights and the DuBaers? A dark family secret? Another family curse?

The Antayus curse was the only one she and Alex knew about. Lord Karsh had described it in his final journal.

It had originated hundreds of years ago when one of their ancestors, the physician Jacob DuBaer, had grown jealous of a beloved healer named Abigail Antayus. A secret warlock himself, Jacob ratted Abigail out to the witch hunters of Salem.

After her capture and terrible death, Abigail’s son vowed that in every generation an Antayus would bring about the death of a DuBaer — specifically, the leader of the clan, who for generations had always been the eldest DuBaer son.

In all the years that followed, the curse had never failed to come true.

As he lay dying, Cam and Alex’s grandfather Nathaniel devised a way to end the bloodshed. He decided that he should be the last male to lead the family. After his death, only females who were immune to the curse would rule.

That accounted for what everyone called the twins’
destiny. They were females. They were DuBaers. They were supposed to rule. After Initiation.

The Antayus curse was scary enough, Cam thought. Were there other curses and grievances waiting for them on Coventry?

Frustrated, she had punched her pillow and rolled over again. As if she’d flipped an index card, the next topic assailed her.

“Supper for ten,” she thought, her heart sinking. And Emily, who was so not the master chef, was going to prepare the feast herself. No crowd. No caterers. A sit-down meal for ten. That’d be Em, Dave, Dylan, the Six Pack, and … Cam and Alex would make it eleven, not ten.

Alex wasn’t going to show! That was it! She must have somehow let Emily know she wasn’t interested in coming to her own birthday party.… Which, of course, had to mean that Alex had come clean with Em and confessed that they knew, both of them, that there was a bash brewing.

No. She couldn’t have. She wouldn’t have.

Then what was Amaryllis talking about? Or was she just “sowing dissension” — finding ways to confuse and conquer — as Thantos had programmed her to do?

Well, if it was confusion the Coventry witch had been trying to promote, she’d succeeded. Cam was thoroughly confused now. And too wound up to sleep.

And there was no one to talk about it with. Her twin hadn’t moved or made a peep since lights-out. How could Alex sleep at a time like this?

“Sleep?!” Alex had unexpectedly declared. “Not with you yammering. Mute the mind-muttering, would you? I’ve got issues of my own!”

“Like what?” Cam had asked eagerly, sitting up and snapping on the light.

“Shut that off!” Alex had ordered. “I’m trying to get some Z’s.”

She was.

Trying.

And failing. When
were
they supposed to return to Coventry for their final tests and actual Initiation ceremony? she’d been wondering. On their last visit to the island, both Ileana and Miranda had been vague about it. Sometime during their birthday month, was all they’d say.

And all Rhianna had said was, “You will be called at the auspicious moment.”

Auspicious? Favorable, lucky, promising … When was that supposed to be? When the sun was at its zenith? When the moon was in the seventh house? Could they have been less specific?

Sun and moon!
The excited thought was Cam’s, playing off Alex’s unspoken question.

Of course!

They’d been born when both the sun and moon were in the sky — Alex just as the full moon was fading, Cam minutes later as the sun rose.

“It’ll be at the full moon!” Cam turned the light back on. “Like when we were born!”

“What are you doing?” Alex whined.

“Looking at the calendar,” Cam answered, racing to her desk. “Full moon in October …?” She pounded the calendar page with her forefinger. “It falls on the sixteenth! O.M.G., that’s like, two weeks away!”

“Ya think?” It was Alex’s turn to punch a pillow. Which she did and turned her back on her sister. “Shut the light!”

The cafeteria was noisy and crowded the next day at lunchtime. Alex was already there when Cam walked in. Alex and Cade were sharing a table with Dylan and the boardies, most of them done up in baggies, knee-length shirts, and knit caps riding low on their brows. Neither Cam nor Alex had gotten much sleep the night before — and their minds were still on Amaryllis.

Beth and Bree were at their usual place, Cam saw. Beth was munching tuna salad in a pita, while Bree was checking out a veggie burger, peering under the bun to be sure not a scrap of beef had slipped past the steam table police.

Behind them, two tables away, same as yesterday, Nadine Somerfeld sat alone. Cam hoped the new girl would look up so she could smile or nod at her or maybe walk over and say hi. But the vibe coming off Nadine was tense and defensively “I’m cool alone.”

She was focusing intently on … Cam telescoped in on the book the new girl was staring at… a social studies textbook. But she hadn’t turned the page — and Cam could see that her eyes were not moving, not following the text. Nadine wasn’t really reading, she was just trying to look engrossed.

As she headed for the Six Pack table, Cam’s thoughts turned away from her Amaryllis-inspired angst and she felt a rush of sympathy for the nervous newcomer. There was something touching and familiar about Nadine’s loneliness and her attempt to cover it up. Obviously, she cared about what other people thought of her. The book was clearly a prop. But she was doing her best to cope, to pretend she was totally independent and importantly occupied.

She reminded Cam of Alex. And of herself. Before she and Alex had connected, Cam had done her share of pretending. She was popular, made the honor roll year after year, was always picked first for a team — but inside, she had felt as lonely as Nadine looked. And as nervous, always worrying that someone would find out how weird she was.

“She is. She’s just weird.”

The sinister whisper startled Cam. It had come from the Six Pack table … where Bree was arguing with Beth about… Nadine.

“She’s not weird,” Beth insisted. “She’s just new —”

“Whatever,” Bree cut her off. “I am not inviting her to sit with us. Hey,” she said as Cam set down her tray. “Beth’s having a charity moment for Nerd-ine.”

“Stop calling her that,” Beth hissed.

“You are so hypocritical,” Bree shot back. “Yesterday you were all, ‘Ooooh, she’s so Salvation Army —’”

“That is not what I said. I just meant —”

Cam didn’t want a piece of the debate. Maybe it was because she was so tired, or maybe it was because she didn’t want to sound holier than Bree.

Bree, Cam knew, was the princess of pretending to be cool. Her family situation was a disaster. Her mom had never gotten over the divorce; her father had never gotten over himself. The two of them were so caught up in their own war that Bree was basically a combat casualty hanging on by a thread.

Cam had known Bree, and the rest of the Six Pack, since grade school. Even back then, Bree was kind of a mess. “Compare and Contrast Waxman,” they used to tease her because that’s what she did all the time. “Do you think my …” — fill in the blank: hair, nose, clothes,
height, weight — “… is better than hers?” It was sad but true that, too often, only by making people think less of someone could Bree think more of herself.

Still, it was an annoying, sometimes infuriating trait. And basically played out, Cam thought. They were all sixteen or about to be. It was time for Bree to grow up.

“Private clash or can anyone jump in?” Kristen, Bree’s best friend, waited for Beth to move her backpack from the chair next to Bree.

Beth complied. “Your BFF is ragging on Nadine again,” she grumbled.

“Nerd-ine,” Bree corrected her.

Even Kristen rolled her eyes at the childish jab.

“Oh, no.” Beth sounded even more upset. “That’s all she needs now!”

Cam followed Beth’s gaze and saw “Skeevy Stevie” Hitchens heading for the new girl’s table. Usually the beefy bully sat alone, throwing his jacket over one chair, dropping his backpack on another, hogging as much of the table as he could, and scaring off anyone who tried to sit down with him.

As he approached Nadine’s table, holding a full tray — supersized soda, french fries with ketchup, and a large bowl of chili — he started to pretend to be slipping and sliding as if he were going to fall.

Cam didn’t need a prophetic vision to know what
would happen next. Every bit of slop on his tray was going to wind up on Nadine’s oblivious head. The bully especially enjoyed tormenting Nadine.

Alex caught it, too. Instantly, she telegraphed Cam,
Okay, I can reverse the tray and make it dump food all over Skeevy Stevie or you can dazzle him into falling backward. Either way, he’s wearing lunch.

Hold that thought,
Cam responded,
and try this one.
An idea had come to her. A total inspiration! Except that it required ingredients that would be impossible to find here and now.

Like a daisy. And a nugget of silver.

The precious metal had a strangely specific power. It could make someone appreciate the purity and simplicity of poverty. Silver. Cam zeroed in on Beth’s turquoise-and-silver bracelet. Maybe that would work.

But a daisy? The flower was excellent for relieving stress — particularly the kind of stress that could hide the simplicity of a heart. Where was she going to find a daisy in October? She and Alex had dried some, along with a dozen other useful flowers, last summer. But they were at home in a bowl on her dresser! She could call up a picture of the flower in her mind, she guessed. It was worth a try.

Now if only she could remember the chant for turning
a negative into a positive — the If-you’ve-got-a-lemon-make-lemonade spell, Ileana had called it.

Through the power of these elements, let change be done,
Alex remembered the beginning of the incantation and sent it to Cam.

Hang on,
Cam sent back. “Bree,” she said aloud, “do you think Beth’s bracelet is real silver?”

“Huh?” Beth and Bree said together.

“Just wondering.” Cam tried to sound casual.

“Let me see that,” Bree ordered Beth.

“No way.” Beth started to pull her hand away, which was all the incentive Bree needed to grab hold of her wrist. The moment Bree touched the silver band, a bouquet of daisies sprouted in Cam’s mind. She could practically smell their sweet earthy fragrance.

Through the power of these elements, let change be done,
she silently recited.
Where once there was evil, now harm none. Where once there was darkness, now shine a light. That Bree may seek what is just, what is right. Let her see goodness where before she saw ill. With loving-kindness may her heart fill.

“Poor Skeevy Stevie,” Bree suddenly announced. “He is so the insecure show-off.”

Oh, no,
Cam thought.
She’s shining her light on the wrong customer.

But a nanosecond later, Bree added, “I’m not gonna sit here and let him hurt Nadine just ’cause he’s hurting.”

Kristen and Beth watched goggle-eyed as Bree, tiny and determined, stomped across the lunchroom, shoved the snickering, tray-clutching bully out of the way, and invited a very startled, very grateful Nadine to join her at the Six Pack table.

Kudos and congrats, Camo!
Alex memoed her sister.

“Hey!” Thwarted and confused, Stevie hollered after the girls, “Whaddya do that for?”

The jeering laughter around him took him by surprise. His face reddened darkly as he spun away from Bree and Nadine to scowl at the lunch bunch taunting him. His grip on the overloaded tray became so tight that his knuckles whitened. He was shaking with rage.

Make that humiliation and embarrassment, Alex realized, studying the boy.

He was a bully and a clown and undoubtedly deserved to be treated with contempt, to be laughed at and rejected. But his defeat was hard to watch.

Especially since, without warning, Alex seemed to be seeing through his eyes!

As if she’d inhabited Skeevy Stevie’s skin and was looking out, Alex saw the kids in the lunchroom laughing and pointing, calling out insults, and, worst of all, rolling
their eyes in disgust or, with a wave of their hands, dismissing him. Only it felt as if it were happening to her.