T*Witches: Split Decision

by Reisfeld, Randi

  “Enough,” Alex declared.

  By closing time, they were both exhausted. Since Alex had Casa Barnes to herself, she invited Michaelina to stay over. While they waited for Cade outside PITS, Michaelina sat on the curb and counted her tips. Her eyes twinkled. “Who knew the mainland was so fun? And so profitable!” She stashed the take in her pocket, while Alex watched the road for the McDonalds’ SUV, which Cade was borrowing to take them home.

  “Cade, Cade, Cade.” Michaelina stretched her legs and leaned back, palms against the sidewalk. “Is he that… special? Is he, like, the One?”

  “Could be,” Alex answered. “I keep thinking how my mom — Sara, my adoptive mom, my protector — would have liked him.”

  “Yeah, but she’s dead. Hey, wait a minute —” Mike snapped her fingers as if she’d just had a brilliant idea. “Why don’t we ask her? We could, you know, bring her … not her exactly, but her spirit back. For a little while.”

  “You’re kidding, right?” Even as she said it, Alex realized that it could be done. Why had she never thought of it before? Hadn’t she and Cam, albeit accidentally, called up the spirit of their grandmother Leila DuBaer? Why not summon Sara?

  She couldn’t speak, wasn’t even sure she was still breathing. She’d be sixteen soon, the age of Initiation. She’d be a full-fledged witch then. Would Sara be proud of her?

  And what would her mom really have thought about Cade?

  And what of the girl she was becoming, this long year spent without each other? What would Sara Fielding think of Alex now?

  It had been so long since she’d had anyone, anyone who’d known and loved her all her life, to talk to. She longed to see Sara again, to tell her everything and find out what she thought. And what advice she’d offer —

  Alex looked hard at Michaelina. The petite sorceress was telling her she could find out.

  CHAPTER NINE

  SUMMER SOLSTICE

  The Summer Solstice celebration took place in the woods at sunset. The participants, Sersee, Epie, Amaryllis, Rowan, and Serle, brought satchels containing herbs, stones, candles in jars, cookies — and one raw egg.

  Epie excitedly started to explain what each ingredient was for, but Sersee clapped a hand over the naive girl’s mouth. “You’ll find out soon enough,” she told Cam. “Don’t you want to be surprised?”

  By Sersee? Not, Cam thought.

  Shane squeezed her hand and whispered, “The ceremony’s easy. Nothing to worry about.”

  Cam fell in with the group as they trekked deeper into the woods. She could hang with them as long as she didn’t get lulled into feeling like one of them. Trust was something they’d have to earn.

  The forests of Coventry were spectacular, she thought, enjoying the crunching sound of pine needles underfoot, the fresh, clean smells, and the vibrant colors. The first line of a poem came to her —

  The woods are lovely, dark and deep …

  What was the next line? She couldn’t remember.

  They reached a grove of purple alder trees. Nature had given them bright berries and saw-toothed leaves. Sersee’s decorating committee had decked them out in silver and white ribbons. Beyond the festive grove was their destination, a small, circular pond.

  Water. Her premonition.

  Cam flinched, started to back away.

  “What’s wrong?” Shane asked.

  “I… c-can’t,” she stammered. “I mean, I wasn’t expecting water.”

  “The pond’s just an element in the ceremony,” Shane told her. “It’s the shape of it, nature’s perfect circle. No one goes in.”

  But wasn’t that the point of the circle, to be inside it? Cam wondered. Shane offered to take her back if she felt uncomfortable, but in the end, she opted to stay and observe the ceremony.

  Each person took a place around the pond. Sitting cross-legged, they each placed a stone of quartz crystal to their right and another of gold to the left. “Quartz opens us to psychic powers,” Shane explained. “And the gold is to attract abundance and riches in the coming year.”

  The tea candles were set down next, ringing the pond. Sersee rose to her knees and passed around one tapered candle to light all the others.

  Then, as if passing a verbal baton, each person took a turn explaining the meaning of the ceremony. It was about the anticipation of plenty, the bounty of nature, hopes for the coming harvest. As advertised, it was simple but impressive and benevolent. It reminded Cam of the Coventry credo, the words etched on the Unity Dome, “that all things might grow to their most bountiful goodness.”

  In time, she relaxed, even joined in as they stood, held hands, and skipped around the pond. One by one, each jumped over the candles — whoever jumped highest, it was said, would have the most success in the coming year. Because of Cam’s natural athleticism and soccer training, she was easily the highest jumper.

  Shane jubilantly raised her arm in celebration. Sersee brought the mood down. “If we’re finished worshiping heiress DuBaer, we’re ready for the next part,” she sullenly announced.

  Bring it on, Cam thought, beginning to enjoy this.

  Sersee clapped her hands, and Epie opened the satchel containing the cookies. “We close our eyes and take —”

  “One cookie each — emphasis on one, Epie,” Sersee reminded the girl.

  The chunky witch reddened again. “Um, they’re all the same,” she told Cam, trying to ignore her leader. “They’re all the same except for the burned one.”

  “And believe me,” Sersee taunted her disciple again, “Epie would even gobble down the burned one if we didn’t keep an eye on her.”

  “Cut it out!” Epie said with surprising spunk.

  Cam looked from one of them to the other. Sersee had always treated Epie more like an unloved pet than a person. But Epie had never even tried to defend herself. Her effort now — weak and ineffectual as it was — surprised Cam. She felt almost affectionate toward the girl. But just because Epie was becoming “her enemy’s enemy,” Cam reminded herself, didn’t make her Cam’s friend.

  “Go on,” Sersee ordered her. “Finish explaining.”

  “The person who picks the burned cookie,” Epie continued, glowering at Sersee, as if daring her to interrupt again, “has to leap over the candles three times while the person who baked the cookies throws the egg, trying to … um, hit that person … and then we all —”

  “Enough.” The raven-haired witch silenced her. “You’re making it too complicated.”

  Serle stepped in front of the brooding Epie. “It’s very simple,” he explained. “If the egg misses, the person jumping will have great fortune in the coming year. If it hits, each of us has to give a small gift to the jumper, to lend him or her the luck they’re lacking.”

  Everyone who thinks, Huh? raise their hand, Cam thought. Only Shane laughed. The satchel was passed around. Predictably, Cam got the last cookie — the burned one.

  “Don’t you seem to be the special one today?” Sersee remarked. “Let’s see how well you do with Amaryllis aiming for you — she’s the one who baked them.”

  Cam was up for the challenge. Her innate competitiveness — combined with disgust at the shabby way Sersee had been treating Epie — fueled her desire to ace this game and show Sersee up.

  She brushed off her shorts and skipped around the candles, once, twice … still, Amaryllis had not pitched the egg. Cam was almost finished with the third go-round when she saw it hurtling toward her.

  She was trying to duck out of the way when a sudden powerful blast of air hit her, striking her solar plexus like an icy fist. In the split second before she tumbled backward, she caught sight of Epie. The girl’s cheeks were puffed out and her mouth was puckered as if it were she, and not nature, who’d blown Cam over.

  A split second of eye contact followed by Epie’s apologetic shrug told Cam that, improbable as it was, Sersee’s punching bag had provided the gust that sent Cam plummeting into the pond.

  Immediately, she felt a t
idal pull in the murky water, a whirling force dragging her down. Her feet found the pond’s floor, which, instead of stopping her descent, seemed to open beneath her, sucking her down farther. There was no bottom. There was only sand. Quicksand.

  Cam knew that flailing would only drag her deeper; she knew that crying out could fill her mouth and then her lungs with water and thick suffocating grit. She struggled against the desire to yell, to wrestle up and out of the soft, squashy sand. Her terrifying premonition was coming true.

  No! her brain screamed. No, this can’t be happening! But her visions always meant something. Why hadn’t she listened to the warning?

  She swung her arms around, her hands grasping for something, anything firm enough to pull herself back up. Nothing held.

  She could feel the gritty dirt rising around her; she could already taste the coarse, granular mud. She could resist no more. “Help! Help!” she screamed as the sand rose around her. Why hadn’t anyone rushed in to save her?

  She could see Shane on his knees at the perimeter of the pond. “Hang on!” he was calling. “I’m coming!” But all he was doing was stretching out his arm, reaching out for her. And he wasn’t close enough.

  Cam put one hand over the next and went into coaching mode. Pull yourself up. You can do it. Don’t panic. Concentrate! She was up to her neck in quicksand now. She bent her knee, trying to push off, to force a dent in the thick sludge, anything temporarily sturdy enough. But every time she lifted her knee, the sand collapsed around her.

  She was sinking fast, the thick swampy water bubbling around her neck. Desperately, she reached for her sun charm. Would its strange power help her? By what magick could she forge a way out of this? She didn’t know —

  The sand reached her chin. It felt as if she were wearing a bodysuit of mud filled with scratching, scrabbling insects. And all she could do was flail her arms, pull, push, stretch, claw. Just keep moving, she told herself, someone will reach you. The pond wasn’t that wide. And they were witches! Surely they could find a long branch, something sturdy she could hang on to.

  Unless, of course …

  The last thought unglued her completely. It had been a trap after all.

  Out of nowhere, the last line of the poem about the woods came to her.… But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep. The long sleep of death, that’s what it was about. The poet was saying it wasn’t his time to die. And it wasn’t hers, either!

  She screamed, “Get a branch! Hurry!” But as she threw back her head to breathe, sand filled her ears and she could not hear.

  Cam fought to breathe, to keep her head above water until someone came. Miranda! Wouldn’t her mother know? Couldn’t she sense Cam’s peril? Surely someone who loved her was on the way. Alex! her frantic racing mind screamed as the watery sand slipped into her mouth. She tried to expel it, spit it out. It was no use. She was sinking, being swallowed alive. Alex…

  CHAPTER TEN

  A CRY FOR HELP

  Help! Help! I’m drowning!

  Alex woke with a start, bathed in sweat. She was hyperventilating, so dizzy she almost passed out when she tried to sit up. The nightmare that had jolted her awake was gale force. It felt so real.…

  I’m going down! It’s taking me … I can’t pull myself out… Alex!

  Alex blinked, tried to shake the blanket of sleep off her, to think clearly. She’d fallen asleep early, the minute she’d come home from her full first day of work, and still wasn’t fully awake. She checked the clock; it wasn’t even midnight. She must’ve fallen into some deep pit of a nightmare.

  Alex! Alex, where are you? I’m drowning!

  It was Cam! Her sister had been summoning her. But wasn’t Cam —? Alex looked over at her sister’s side of the room. Her bed was emp —

  She remembered. Cam was on Coventry Island. Had left just days ago.

  Please help me! I don’t want to die!

  Snap! Alex’s eyes suddenly opened wide. This was a nightmare, all right, the nastiest kind. Because it was real. Worse, this was not something about to happen — this terrified cry was real and now. Cam was sending her a telepathic 911.

  Alex leaped out of bed, tried to calm herself just enough to think straight. Miranda! Ileana! They were on Coventry. Couldn’t they rescue Cam? She ran for the phone. And stopped dead.

  There was no number to call. Coventry Island had no phones.

  She refocused swiftly and went the telepathic route, calling out desperately, Miranda! Ileana! Cam’s in trouble. Hurry! You’ve got to save her!

  She waited. Listening hard. All she heard were the sounds of the Marble Bay summer night, the clicking of cicadas, the barking of a nearby dog, the whirr of the air conditioner. No return message from Miranda or Ileana. And then —

  It’s pulling me down! I can’t get out! Someone save me!

  The panic now seized Alex’s entire body, propelled her forward. She flew downstairs to the kitchen, as if the answer might lie there. Her eyes fell on the spice rack. The Transporter spell! That was it! She could use magick to transfer herself to Coventry and save Cam. She was shaking hard, trying to hold the small spice bottles still to decipher the labels, trying to remember which she needed. One that started with M — but what? Margarine? No! No, stupid, marjoram … or did that bring back the dead?

  In her panic, Alex stopped thinking altogether. She opened every spice jar and matched it up with any and every incantation that came to her.

  Hold on, Cam! I’m coming! It’ll be okay! I just have to get the spell —

  The door banged open. Alex jumped.

  A blur of green rushed at her.

  Michaelina shouted, “What’s wrong? I heard you calling out —”

  “It’s Cam!” Alex yelled. “She’s … I heard her …”

  She trailed off. So, wait. Alex’s telepathic messages to Coventry had been intercepted by … Michaelina?

  There was no time for questions. A crystal! That’s what she needed! The one Karsh had given her was in the bedroom. She raced toward the stairs.

  Michaelina yelled after her, “I’ll help you. Don’t worry. I have an idea.”

  “We have no time —” Alex screamed back at her.

  “I have a spell I can do,” Mike promised, rushing to catch up with her. “We can see her. See what’s happening. And I can pull her out of — I mean, we can save her.”

  “I think she’s drowning!” Alex was trembling now, terrified that she’d wasted too much time, that her sister was already —

  “Then let’s move it!” Mike shouted. She blasted up the steps, beating Alex into the bedroom.

  Alex’s heart was racing. What if they saw the trouble Cam was in and they couldn’t help her? Would that be worse? And could Michaelina even do this? Once Thantos had located the missing Dylan, by using a powerful spell called the Situator. But the head of the DuBaer dynasty was an experienced tracker, practiced in magick, extraordinarily skilled. The childlike witch in front of Alex was none of the above. But Alex could not afford to doubt her.

  Michaelina seized a glass jar from Cam’s desk and flipped back its mirrored, spring-loaded lid. Inside was a vanilla-bean candle. “Light it!” she commanded.

  With what? Alex looked frantically around the room. Cam could have ignited the wick with her blazing eyes. Alex had no such ability, and no match. Her talent was telekinesis. She shut her eyes and focused all her fear and desperation on one image: a flame. The fire she’d pictured hadn’t even turned red, when a drawer opened and a book of matches leaped out, landing in her hands.

  From a leather pouch inside her cape pocket, Michaelina withdrew a rose quartz crystal, which she placed beside the candle, and a small familiar-looking brownish root. When she tossed it into the candle flame, Alex caught a faint aroma of apple. “This is mandrake root,” the intense little witch announced. “Sometimes called witch’s apple. I’m going to add a pinch of henbane, then keep your eyes on the fire light. We should see Cam in a minute.”

  �
��And we’ll be able to help her … save her, right?” Alex insisted.

  Michaelina didn’t answer.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  THE RESCUE

  Cam’s life flashed before her in movie-style slo-mo. She was kicking, her chubby legs were like scissors as David Barnes hoisted baby Cam in the air.

  She was snuggled in Emily’s lap, listening raptly to Goodnight Moon.

  She was the proud big sister rocking baby Dylan.

  She was running through the house in Marble Bay, riding her two-wheeler to school, jumping on the bed during a sleepover at Beth’s house, booting her first soccer goal…

  And then she was in Montana, looking into Alex’s eyes for the first time, feeling complete. Whole. Saved.

  Something huge, hard as steel tongs, seized her rib cage. Hands, she realized, feeling a pulse pushing through the palms of whatever mammoth creature was gripping her waist and pulling her up through the dark ooze. An angry voice echoed, as if through a megaphone, “What have you done?!”

  The viselike grip held firm. Cam was being ripped out of the warmth, out of the deadly clinging slime, out of the murky water. Before she could completely process what was going on, she was being wrapped in a heavy blanket and set down gently on the ground. Then the sound of her own coughing drowned out everything else. She sensed someone massaging her back. These hands were softer, lighter than the ones that had dragged her out of the pond. She knew it was Shane. He was shaking, calling to her, “It’s all right, you’re safe.…”

  She understood. She’d been brought back, saved. But not by him.

  The recognition of who had rescued her dawned slowly and made her sick to her already twisting stomach: Thantos DuBaer. Her detested uncle had materialized out of nowhere and had done what no one else could or wanted to — rushed into the deadly pond, reached down, and plucked her out. Pulled her from darkness to light. Saved her life.

  “I demand an explanation!” Cam heard him bellowing at the group. “How could you let this happen to my niece?”