T*Witches: Double Jeopardy (7 page)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

A NEW TRICK

“Give!” Alex commanded minutes after they’d left Kenya and started home. “You had a vision, right?”

“Got aspirin?” Cam answered, confirming the guess.

As Alex fished the achy-head med from her backpack, Cam began describing what she’d seen: It wasn’t a premonition of the future or a picture from the past. This one was here and now and totally scary. But the image was reassuring at the same time. Because it was of Dylan — and he was alive!

Her blond bro was in a swampy wooded area. The trees were still mostly bare except for the evergreens. On the ground were deep clumps of wet leaves that Dylan was slogging through. He was limping. He looked
banged up and lost. His face was so mud-streaked it was hard to see if he’d been cut or bruised. And he was clutching a red knit cap that matched Kenya’s description of RideBoy’s hat.

“Any clue to where this woodsy swamp might be?” Alex asked.

“Not too far from Marble Bay,” Cam said. “I mean the shrubs, pines, and even the iced-over marsh and sandy shoreline looked a lot like around here, but not exactly.”

With the slightly bitter remains of the herbal cocoa, Cam downed the aspirins Alex had given her and asked, “What were you saying to Kenya … about numbers?”

“The sound track to your movie, I guess,” Alex said. “Hot lyrics: ‘Seventy degrees, fifty-five minutes, forty-two degrees, thirty minutes.’ Never make the Grammys —”

“They’re coordinates,” Cam said, excited.

“What, like your cashmere turtleneck and peach corduroys?”

“Duh. Latitude and longitude, Als. Got a map?”

While Alex leafed through her geography book, Cam phoned home. Automatically, she asked whether there was any news about Dylan. Emily burst into tears. Dave took the phone. “What? Fine,” he said when Cam told him she and Alex were going over to Beth’s to study; was it all right if they had supper there? “Aunt Wendy’s
here and Sally and some of Mom’s clients. Just don’t be too late,” Dave said. “And don’t worry. We’ll find him.”

“Got it!” Alex had flipped to the topographical map of New England. “Check this out.” She showed Cam the page. And there they were — the numbers Karsh had whispered to her, latitude and longitude! The coordinates for Salem, Massachusetts, two hours from Marble Bay as the bike pedaled. Shorter as the van flew.

“Dylan must’ve caught up with RideBoy …” Cam conjectured, thinking about the hat.

“And gotten dumped in some deserted place,” Alex finished the thought.

“And wouldn’t you like to know how to find it — and your gallant brother, too?”

The voice was deep and purringly sarcastic. Spooked, and with the Internet fiend on their minds, the T’Witches whirled, expecting to see RideBoy. Before they knew it, Cam had spun and kicked the predator in the shin. As he bent over, Alex crowned him with her hardcover geography text.

“Oof!” the big, black-bearded man stumbled forward. Only then did Alex catch the odor of spicy cloves, the horse-stable stench of muck, and a scouring sting of ice.

They had attacked their treacherous uncle Lord Thantos.

He moved forward, sweeping them before him into the shade of a giant evergreen. Hidden beneath its thick drooping branches, the giant warlock glared at them. His dark eyes caught Cam’s. He stared at her malevolently, whispering hoarsely, his lips barely moving.

All at once Cam’s hands and feet felt tight, shrunken, and sharp-toed within her shoes. The same tingling sensation afflicted her hands. When she glanced down at them, her heart nearly leaped from her chest.

In place of her pale, thin fingers were furry gray paws with long sharp nails. Her teeth began to rattle, not from cold or fright, but rodentlike, moving rhythmically, ready to grind anything that came her way.

Alex screamed at the sight of her altered sister. But the scream emerged as a high-pitched hiss. Her back hunched uncontrollably. She was on all fours, fighting an empty ache in her belly, a hollow hunger that traveled to the synapses of her brain. There the pain was translated into a command: Chase, catch, kill!

She was a cat. And Cam was a mouse. And everything inside Alex demanded that she stalk and destroy her twin.

Fighting the urge with all her might, Alex turned toward Thantos and sank her claws into his leg. He whirled and she felt herself spin out into space, landing with a thud against a prickly hedge. Cam followed her
through the air, a piece of their uncle’s dark velvet robe clasped between her rodent teeth.

“Enough!” Thantos growled. “You are mere children! And ungrateful fledglings. I came to offer you help, and this is the way you greet me?!”

“Help?” Alex’s voice sounded as uneven as Dylan’s sometimes did. Only in her case it wasn’t part child, part adult; it was feline vs. human. “You mean the way you helped Dylan?” she mewed. The effort of speaking left her throat painfully tight.

Cam’s sharp little teeth were chattering. “Undo us!” she squeaked.

Thantos took a deep, calming breath, then waved his hand in their direction, mumbling again, still annoyed.

They began to morph back into their human forms. The return was more uncomfortable than the shrinking had been. Cam’s limbs ached as they grew through the gray bristles of her mouse hide. Alex yowled pitifully.

“Never —” Thantos ignored their misery. “Never challenge my power!”

Despite the soreness in her jaw, Cam tried to tease her sister. “Talk about embarrassing. Do you think anyone saw us?”

“Oh, please.” With a raspy tongue, Alex licked the back of her hand. “We have way more urgent issues.”

“I came as a favor to your mother,” Thantos was roaring as they stood before him, whole again, “and because your guardians are too busy with their own paltry affairs —”

At least Karsh let us know where Dylan is
, Cam silently reminded Alex.

Mid-rant, Thantos didn’t hear the aside. “This, Miranda and I have in common,” he was booming, “arrogant, thankless children. Yet Miranda cares. Your mother cares deeply about your welfare. Which is why she sent me —”

Alex rolled her eyes. “Right. To turn us into pets?”

Thantos lifted his arms suddenly, as though he were going to morph them again. Through gritted teeth, he said, “Only for Miranda would I tolerate such insolence!”

“Why did you tell her that we were dead?” Cam demanded.

“Haven’t you a more pressing problem?” their uncle reminded them, letting his hands fall to his sides. “Your brother is in trouble, I understand.”

“You understand? Ha! You’re the one who got him in trouble to begin with,” Alex accused.

“Yeah,” Cam added. “How did you know Dyl was in that Dumpster?”

“I didn’t,” Thantos said smugly. “You did. It was your
premonition, dear Camryn. I just made it available to both of you.”

“Did you plant his earring in there, too?” Alex pressed.

“His earring? Oh, I see. You found something of his, did you? Excellent. To prove my good faith, I’ll show you a most amusing ‘trick.’”

“What are you going to do now, put us in a petting zoo?” Alex challenged.

“I’m going to show you how to perform a feat only trackers are permitted to know. How to locate someone by using an item that belonged to them, however recently or long ago. It’s called the Situater.”

“You’re going to show us how to find Dylan?” Alex said.

Cam shuddered, thinking Als was about to blow it, about to tell Thantos that they already knew Dylan’s whereabouts.
Don’t
, Cam wanted to warn.
Let’s suck up Uncle T’s tracker trick. It’ll be useful some other time
. But her sister surprised her by saying, “Ultimate cool. Guess we had you figured wrong, Uncle Thantos.”

“Give me the earring.” He held out his great hand.

“Nuh-uh,” Cam said.

“You still don’t trust me.” The forceful warlock sounded exasperated, angry. “Foolish girls. Don’t you
know how protected you are by Miranda’s devotion? Do you think I would do anything to cause her more pain? She is more to me, much more, than my brother’s widow or my defiant nieces’ mother. She is …” Thantos let it trail off. “Open your hand. Show me the Barnes boy’s earring. Now!” he commanded.

Cam opened her hand, which, she was relieved to see, was still her own and not some woodland creature’s. Dylan’s earring lay on her palm.

“Now watch,” their uncle ordered. He removed a leather pouch from his belt and took out a rough-hewn, faceted piece of rock.

But it was the pouch that fascinated Alex. She stared at it, thinking about how full of goodies it probably was and how amazing it would be to get her hands on it.

“Quartz crystal,” Thantos said, holding the translucent stone over Dylan’s earring. “Also known as sacred fire for its ability to trap and magnify light, to focus one’s energy on a particular subject.”

Light did pour onto the earring, making it gleam like a crystal ball. “Pay attention!” the warlock snapped, handing the quartz to Alex and gesturing for her to hold it over the earring.

Next he took two herbs from the sack. “Henbane,” he said. “Normally one would burn this. But at this moment,
I can turn it to ash in my hand. And this —” He held up a strange-looking root that seemed to have arms and legs. “Mandrake. Can you not see your brother in its form?”

Setting down the leather pouch, he didn’t wait for an answer. His hands reached out and closed over both Alex’s and Cam’s, locking the earring, quartz, and plants together in their grasp. Then he looked up through the pine needles at the darkening sky.

The twins could feel heat rising in their palms. Thantos had told the truth when he said he could burn the henbane without a fire. Their impulse was to pull their hands away, but he held them firmly. Then, closing his eyes, their uncle recited:
“Sun and moon, earth and sky, take us deep within this sacred object’s magick eye, to see what it has seen.”

Drowsily, Cam’s and Alex’s eyes fluttered shut. They recognized, against the dark screen of their eyelids, the back of the mall in early light. A banged-up old red van was practically the only vehicle parked there. Leaning against it was a man smoking a cigarette. The man — about thirty, his potbelly protruding from his shiny black baseball jacket, a red knit cap down low on his head — was scanning the place. His gaze drifted past the twins — past Dylan, they realized, who must have been peering out of the Dumpster.

The man, clearly RideBoy, checked his watch, paced, waited, looked at his watch again. They could tell he was getting nervous. He threw down his cigarette and turned toward the van.

Suddenly, their view of him shifted — Dylan had obviously begun to climb out of the Dumpster. “Yo, dude, wait up!” they heard. And then the picture tumbled round and round, as Dylan’s earring fell, landing on a collapsed carton next to a green plastic bag.

“Awesome,” Alex breathed, opening her heavy-lidded eyes.

Cam was shaking. She tried to remove her hands from Thantos’s grip, but he clamped down tighter. Alex, whose hands were mashed in the grasp, yipped, “Hey!”

“Are you so impatient with old Karsh?” their angry uncle growled. “Does he teach you but half a spell? Be still!”

“There’s more?” Cam asked.

Thantos didn’t answer. He looked up through the pine branches again and begrudgingly snarled:
“From this object show us how, with herbs and stones so rare, we may find young Dylan now, and see how he does fare.”

At last, he released them. Cam and Alex opened their hands. Both the henbane and mandrake root were ash. Dylan’s earring, beneath the crystal, glowed bright
red. In it they could see the sandy shore, the swamp grass, the carpet of dead leaves, and Dylan! He was standing still now, holding on to a tree with one hand. His head was bent with exhaustion. He was breathing hard.

Don’t give up
, Alex wanted to cry out to him.

“He can’t hear you, of course,” Thantos said. “Do you recognize the place?”

“Sort of,” Cam said.

“Look deeper. Look through the stone into the earring’s gleam.”

They did. The image opened out, as if they were flying backward, above Dylan. They saw the outside edge of the woods, the bay, a highway, and then the sign:
SALEM
15
MILES
.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

A GRAVE SITUATION

“We’re almost there.” Because Miranda had asked, Ileana was taking her to a place she herself would not have chosen to go just now.

To Aron’s grave, at Rock Mount Cemetery.

No archway, neither sign, nor gate indicated the entrance to the hallowed and, some said, haunted burial ground. It lay on the northern tip of Coventry, where the wind whipped most fiercely in the winter and rain fell in curtains during the spring, leaving its pathways soggy and leaf-strewn.

Thick with broad-branched trees, there was little room for the sun to break through. Darkness permeated the cemetery, even at high noon.

It was a daunting place, but Ileana had never been frightened of it, not when she was young. As a child, strong, healthy, daring — reckless, even — she had laughed at those who believed the ghost stories, dared them to come with her.

Now, for some reason, she felt just like the friends she’d laughed at.

The creaking branches overhead, the footfall-like snap of twigs in the underbrush, every noise sounded menacing, startled her, raised goose bumps. Several times she’d turned, fear spiraling up her spine, to see if they were being watched, followed.

The two women moved slowly along the rocky path, breathing hard with the effort. Miranda clutched the hem of her robe in one hand and a walking stick in the other. Ileana admitted only to herself that she, too, could have used a stick to keep her balance as they climbed.

Once, she had sprinted up this hill, light on her feet, senses sharp always. Like a young goat she had darted through the thorny bramble and branches that surrounded and protected the grave sites — and kept all of them, even the most isolated, carefully hidden.

Once, she had believed her parents were buried here and had searched for their graves, even though she knew little of her mother and nothing of her father.
Karsh, who had acted as both to her, disapproved of her trips to Rock Mount. So she’d sneak out and wander about, reading the names on the headstones, hoping, each time, to come across one that would stir something in her that would evoke some momentous feeling to let her know that here was her mother. Or father.

When none ever did, she wondered if her secret fantasy wasn’t reality. That somehow her true parents were alive, that they were, in fact, Aron and Miranda DuBaer. Though they were hardly old enough, they were good, and kind, and strong, and loving. And she resembled them. Her metallic-gray eyes were exactly the same as theirs. She imagined that living with Karsh was some kind of test. And if she passed it, Aron and Miranda would come to claim her, to welcome her back into her true home.

Ileana had held that fantasy close for many years. She didn’t give it up entirely until she was fourteen — and learned that Miranda was pregnant and would soon start a real family. It was irrational, she knew, to feel betrayed. But she had.

As if Miranda intuited the teen witch’s envy, she’d spent more time with her, listening, teaching, nurturing. Acting much like the mother Ileana had always wanted.

And then the twins came, and Miranda vanished.

*   *   *

With increasing difficulty, the fragile women traipsed up the steep incline. Ileana stole a glance at Miranda, wondering whether Aron’s widow — who had gently but firmly insisted on this trek — was really up to it.

Finally, they came to the crest of the hill where Aron had been buried amid many, many generations of DuBaers.

It was hard to find his modest stone because here, taller than the traditional prickly hedges, were flowers! A garden of fragrant flowering herbs ringed the DuBaer family plot.

Who had done this? Who had so lovingly and diligently kept it up?

Karsh, thought Ileana.

Thantos, thought Miranda.

It had been many years since the young widow had cried and keened for her husband. Not since that terrible moment when Karsh had told her of Aron’s death, had brought her his bloody cloak, and she had gone mad.

Had her years at Rolling Hills rendered her numb? Or had she been there because her feelings were too deeply buried?

Miranda dropped to her knees amid the rosemary and thyme, the stalks of lavender and pink and blue blossoming sage, the towering sunflowers and creeping phlox.
She leaned against the small marker that bore her beloved’s name, feeling the smooth marble against her forehead and the rush of tears against her cheek. Her shoulders heaved as she wept, sobbed, shook in a churning gale of sorrow.

To give Miranda privacy, Ileana turned away.

In that moment, she was swept by a wave of fear. Something rustled in the bramble beyond the flowers. Something untamed — hyenas, coyotes, wild dogs — gurgled soft, snickering sounds. She whirled toward Miranda, to see if she’d heard anything. But the grieving woman was lost in her own world.

With a shush, the noise in the bushes faded. The only sounds Ileana heard were Miranda’s wrenching sobs — and her own heart, breaking for the woman. Quietly, Ileana walked over and stroked Miranda’s thick, silky hair.

“I used to wish you were my mother,” she murmured, lowering herself to the wet ground, to sit next to Miranda as her weeping subsided.

“I know,” Miranda whispered.

“I never knew much about her,” the young witch continued, “only that her name was Beatrice, and she had blond hair —”

“And sparkling brown eyes, and cheeks always rosy
with brewing mischief. She was quick-witted, your mother, and regal in her bearing if not her heritage.” Miranda turned from the grave and peered at Ileana through tear-swollen eyes.

“You knew her?” Ileana pulled back, surprised. Why hadn’t she known that?

“And of course, your father, too,” Miranda affirmed.

Ileana’s face turned cold. “Father? Don’t speak of it! If it’s Lord Thantos you mean, I still don’t believe it — and if it is true, I can’t bear it.”

Miranda shook her head. “I understand, but you … you don’t know him —”

“And whose fault is that?!” Ileana leaped up, her face contorted in anger. “Perhaps it’s you who don’t know him. He killed your husband! He’s an uncaring, greedy monster, a murderous predator, scornful of anyone who gets in his way.”

With effort, Miranda rose and grasped Ileana’s shoulders. “I could never believe that Thantos was a murderer. What possible reason would he have to cut down his own brother? They were bound not only by blood but by family loyalty. They ran a business together, one that has, as Aron intended, benefited millions of people.”

Ileana glowered. “Thantos wanted Aron dead and pushed Fredo to do it.”

Miranda shook her head wearily. “No, child. Poor Fredo was never … right, never bright as the others. He’s always been dull and easily influenced.”

Ileana whirled. Again, she heard it. Something in the bramble, this time a creature that huffed and grumbled rather than laughed.

She caught an overbearing sweet, oily scent — more like a noxious cosmetic than an herb. Once more there was a rustling in the bushes, though there was no breeze. She looked up at the trees to see if any were swaying. They were still. She cocked her ear. If only her senses were keen again. If only she could hear and see and smell as she had before the trial, before discovering that Thantos DuBaer had fathered her. Then, if someone — even a spirit — were nearby, she would know.

“He was born afflicted, the child of Leila’s old age,” Miranda was saying. “All Aron and Thantos ever did was to try and help him.”

Gently, Miranda turned Ileana’s chin, forcing the edgy young witch to look at her. “You hate Thantos for one reason only — though you don’t know why he behaved as he did.”

Ileana couldn’t stop the torrent of angry tears. “He threw me away! His own daughter. Never to recognize me, never to nurture, to teach …” The words
never to
love
would not come out. “What kind of monster does that?”

Now Miranda stroked Ileana’s hair, which was as tangled as threads of Florentine gold. “What kind of monster? The kind that had been hurt so deeply that he couldn’t even look into the tiny, angry red face of his newborn child. Remember, dear child, he had just lost Beatrice —”

“Yes! Because of me,” Ileana ranted. “Is that what you’re saying? That she died giving birth to me, so he hated me, wanted to bury me with my mother?” She had said what she hadn’t even known she’d been thinking.

“Never!” Miranda gasped.

“No excuse!” Ileana spun away from her. “She wasn’t the first to die in childbirth. Other fathers cherish their babies, the one living reminder —”

“Exactly. You were all that Thantos, bent and broken, could not be reminded of. Dear Ileana, has no one ever told you the full story?”

Ileana clenched her teeth. “Story, or fantasy? Made up by him to deceive you.”

“No, he did not make it up,” Miranda said evenly. “Remember, I was there. I was Aron’s beloved, his brother’s bride. I bore witness to it all.”

Stubbornly skeptical, Ileana shook her head. But she remained silent as Miranda led her to a bench near
the imposing crypt of Ephram DuBaer, the first of the illustrious family to come to the New World, to the Plymouth Colony, where his skills as a botanist and healer brought him wealth and renown.

The carved bench on which they sat felt cold to Ileana, as cold and unwelcoming as her so-called father. But Miranda took her hand and stroked it gently as she passed along all that she knew.

Soon after Aron and Miranda were betrothed, the twins’ mother said, Thantos fell in love, too.

Her name was Beatrice, Ileana’s mother, Beatrice Hazlett. She was beautiful, bright, and strong-willed, which Miranda and Aron had agreed was just the sort of mate the self-centered, stubborn Thantos needed.

All the family were thrilled for him — except for Leila, his mother. Perhaps she saw too much of herself in Beatrice, viewed the headstrong young beauty as a threat to her own dominating nature. But Leila claimed that it was because Beatrice was lowborn, of an undistinguished lineage.

The Hazletts, Leila was convinced, were poets and dreamers and had produced no great witches or warlocks. Miranda shook her head in wonder. “This despite the fact that they were distant relatives of the Antayus clan, our dear Karsh’s people.”

Aron had argued with his mother; Miranda had,
too — as much as she dared. “Leila was a formidable creature,” Miranda said.

Ileana nodded knowingly. Though she had met Leila only as a spirit, “formidable,” even “fearsome,” did not begin to describe her grandmother’s aura.

Leila vowed she would never accept Beatrice as a daughter. She pressured Thantos not to marry her, did everything she could think of to discredit Ileana’s mother and stop the nuptials. Miranda recalled how Leila had constantly harped on Beatrice’s background, how she’d reminded Thantos that he was acting in haste and that his judgment was flawed because he was on the rebound, not in his true mind.

Marrying anyone at that vulnerable time, let alone a Hazlett, would only be done out of spite, Leila had believed, and could only end in disaster.

Only one of Leila’s sons was as obstinate and assertive as she — and that was Thantos. Of course, he went against his mother’s will. And of course, Leila refused to attend the wedding. She warned Thantos that should he and Beatrice become parents, she would never set eyes upon their child. The powerful and mighty Leila DuBaer would have nothing to do with the baby.

Ileana gasped. Leila’s spirit had begged her forgiveness. Now she knew why.

Thantos insisted they be married at once, Miranda’s
tale continued, a year before Aron and she were to wed. When Beatrice died in childbirth, Leila rushed to “comfort” her eldest. But she also assured Thantos that Ileana’s mother’s death was the result of his pigheadedness and of Beatrice’s ancestral weakness.

In his bereaved state, Thantos chose to believe her.

He also believed that Leila was demanding he make a choice — Miranda thought that in her cunning way, Leila was — a choice between his mother and his daughter, an infant whose blood might carry Beatrice’s defiance. If Leila would have nothing to do with Ileana, neither then would Thantos.

“So he asked Karsh, one of the great warlocks of his day and your grandfather Nathaniel’s best friend, to look after you. And to hide his pain,” Miranda supposed, “Thantos buried himself in work.”

He did whatever he could to forget his marriage and his child — and lived to show his mother that he was just as capable of bringing glory to the DuBaers as Aron, who he’d always thought she loved better.

“The truth is, Ileana, he could not bear to see you. You reminded him of … everything he wanted to forget.”

It was too much, too much to take in all at once. When Miranda said nothing more, Ileana filled the uncomfortable silence. “Then my mother’s grave isn’t here among the DuBaers, is it?”

Miranda shook her head. “It’s on the other side of the island, in a far fairer and gentler place. The cemetery, in fact, where Karsh’s ancestors rest. I will take you there one day.”

Ileana suddenly remembered something. “You said that Thantos was on the rebound? From whom?”

Miranda shrugged. “His one true love, he once said. We never found out. But this you must know, Ileana. I believe Thantos was mistaken, misguided in his treatment of you, yet he is a decent man.”

“He’s scum,” Ileana quarreled.

“I would trust him with Apolla’s and Artemis’s lives,” Miranda insisted.

Ileana whirled on her, infuriated, affronted. “You mean Camryn’s and Alexandra’s lives? What would you know of them? Your wisdom, like your power, is truly diminished. A real mother would have known they were alive. You weren’t here….” She caught herself and, instantly, she was ashamed.

Miranda felt sick, weak, stabbed, but she couldn’t let Ileana see it. That would have hurt the wounded young witch even more. She simply said, “I got a message from … from Camryn and Alexandra. They needed help —”

“What? What’s wrong?” Ileana began to tremble. The twins had needed her, and she hadn’t even heard
them. But Miranda, who she’d just accused of being an unfit mother, had? That was how badly broken she was, Ileana realized with dread.