Despite Dylan's belief that they should have stayed home, Cam thought, getting out of town, not having to face her teammates, was the best thing she could have done.
Still, something about this vacation was creeping her out; something other than wondering if she'd gone around the bend; something weirder than hallucinating an aging gremlin who might or might not have predicted Marleigh's disappearance.
Usually, her family went to Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, for two weeks of golf, tennis, and tanning. But this summer they'd accepted the invitation of a grateful client of her dad's to spend time at his resort ranch in Montana. Saddlebrook, the rambling place was called, and the guy who owned it had a strange name. Sot Naht. Which Dylan, of course, had morphed into Snot Knot.
At first, Cam had been grateful to be far from Marble Bay, scene of her infamous freeze and possible mental meltdown. She'd been psyched that Beth was along. They could have fun anywhere. But since they'd arrived, she'd been feeling even more spooked than she had at the game. There was something about being here, in the wide-open spaces of Montana, that made her feel unsettled. Lonely even.
Right. Lonely, when she was around almost everyone who mattered to her. Definitely, she was losing it.
She'd meant to ask her dad how he knew this Snot Knot guy. In the living room of the lodge, there was a huge portrait of a burly, well-dressed, bearded man. A man with burning black eyes who, she assumed, was Mr. Naht. She wondered what business he'd had with her dad.
"Earth to Cam. Your vote, please?" Her mom's voice interrupted her thoughts. "We've got two choices. We could go to the frontier theme park over at Crow Creek. It's supposed to be an authentic re-creation of life in the 1800s. Or, there's a fascinating conservation walk..."
Instantly, Cam clicked back to the reality zone. Some things never changed. Like, her mom on a mission. There had to be some edu-aspect to their vacation. It was a Barnes family requirement.
That's what she was doing—Cam wanted to remember—she'd been smiling at the back of her mom's salon-perfect blond 'do, when the vote was taken. That's what she'd been thinking—how her mom was so flawless and predictable—when a totally random decision was made. Where to spend a few hours on vacation. A simple little decision that would change her life forever.
Chapter 7 — Close Encounter
"Welcome to Big lie... I mean Big Sky."
That was the way Alex sometimes greeted tourists. In her cheesy fringed vest, she worked the ticket booth at the east entrance to the theme park.
She checked the time. A half hour more and she'd be off duty. Then, she'd meet up with Evan and Lucinda, and they'd hang out and mock the crowd while scarfing junk food. The kind with names as bogus as Big Sky itself. Rank-tasting stuff like "pioneer burgers," "bunkhouse chili," "rodeo franks," and Alex's personal favorite, "buffalo chips."
"Can I get four all-day passes, please?"
Alex glanced up to see a man with unruly dark hair, a walrus mustache, and a bushy canopy of eyebrows overhanging small, twinkling blue eyes. The guy had a natural grin that made him seem easygoing and made her want to smile.
He nudged two fifty-dollar bills in the slot toward her. "That's good for every attraction and ride, right?"
She nodded, then couldn't help adding, "As many as you can live through, sir. It's part of our Frequent Survivor Package."
Luckily, he smiled at her—then tilted his head and shot her a curious look. She was used to that, since most of her customers were easily thrown by her hair-du-jour. But mustache man seemed neither shocked nor disapproving. It was almost as if he recognized her and was about to say, "Do I know you?"
To which Alex would have responded, "No way." This guy, in his happy tourist Hawaiian shirt that showed his sunburn line at the sleeve, was so not from around here. Then again, who was?
It was summer, Big Sky's big season. Vacationers swarmed the grounds; bought T-shirts, bolo ties, and souvenir vests; took pictures outside the "genuine" wild West saloon or behind papier-mâché bars in the "authentic" sheriff's office, or waving from the top of the Ol' Wagon Wheel—which was Big Sky-ese for broken-down old Ferris wheel.
Making fun of tourists was easy, a cheap thrill that—okay, yeah, yeah, Alex got it—had more than a hint of envy to it. But it was like, summer vacation, whoo-hoo. Watching smiley-faced families—mom, dad, junior, and sis—romping through overpriced, phony-baloney "attractions," run by the pathetic, underpaid "townie" staff. Spew much? Alex could.
For her, "summer" and "vacation" didn't belong in the same sentence. Summer? She could work longer hours. Vacation? Alex's mom never got a day off. Sara'd be losing money this week because she had to go to the clinic.
A shadow fell over Alex's heart as she thought about the cough her mother'd had for weeks now. Maybe months. Alex didn't know how long it had been. Unsurprisingly, Sara had been secretive about it—as she was about anything that might cause her daughter to worry. She was always trying to protect her, shield her from... from reality, Alex guessed.
Reality: They were alone, broke, and paddling like crazy just to stay afloat. Reality: For the bonus round—Sara was sick and they couldn't afford a decent doctor, so she'd waited weeks for today's clinic appointment. "Only two weeks," her mom would say—like that was nothing.
Sara could put a positive spin on anything. Like when people called Alex "different" instead of "cute," or said she looked "interesting" instead of "pretty," her mom would beam—like it was the hugest compliment—and proudly announce, "That's Alexandra, that's my girl."
Again, Alex checked the time. Fifteen more minutes. She wished she could call her mom right now, find out what they'd said at the clinic. No one was at her booth this second. If she'd had a working cell phone, powered by a major company, she could make the call. If she'd had a smart phone, she could simply text.
Right, like that would ever happen. It was so not a mystery why seeing kids parade around the park, giggling into iPhones and Blackberrys, totally annoyed Alex. They could have entire text conversations with their buds, who were like ten feet away.
Idiots.
Alex couldn't find out if her own mom was okay until she got off work, broke out of her cage, and either miraculously was near enough to a cell tower that her dinky provider used – or try and find a working pay phone.
She took a deep breath. Chill, she told herself. You're out of here soon.
"Change of plans." Lucinda's apple-pie face suddenly filled the ticket window. It was a face that not even fifty skinny braids, two of them dyed orange, could make seem anything but innocent. "Evan says to meet him at the Wagon Wheel. Henry got sick so they sent Ev over there. We're gonna go up for free."
Alex scrunched her nose. "Up where? On the wheel? We want to do this, exactly, why?" Evan was a flake, for sure, but the Ol' Wagon Wheel, Big Sky's totally hurting, state-of-the-last-century ride? They never did that.
"It's free, that's why," Lucinda repeated. "Come on, Als. Just one ride. It'll be a blast."
One ride. A blast.
It only blasted Alex's whole universe to pieces.
Evan saw it first. Clarification: saw her first. On the Ol' Wagon Wheel. But in typical Evan-speak, he did the lame-joke thing.
"Hey, Alex," he called, leaning over the side of their creaky, swinging basket. "There's a girl two carts down who stole something from you."
Alex did a fast calculation and came up blank. Her money was in her jeans pocket. Her backpack was stashed in the gear house at the bottom of the Ferris wheel. She folded her arms across her chest, waiting for the punch line. "Okay, Ev, I'll play. What'd she steal? My Stratocaster, SUV, or cell phone?"
Evan pointed down. "Your face."
Alex rolled her eyes. "Don't quit your day job, Evan. Comedy Central is not scanning the globe for you," she said, rubbing a sudden rash of goose bumps on her arm.
Lucinda flipped around to check. "Get outta here! Alex," she shrieked. "He's right. She looks just like you—"
"Only cleane
r," Evan said.
"Could you be any less funny?" Alex challenged. But her stomach lurched nervously, or maybe it was just the cart swinging in a gust of wind. "Nobody looks like me," she declared, going along with the joke. Although—between the goose bumps and fluttery stomach—she was acting way cooler than she felt. Finally, she peered over the side of the cart to check it out.
A pair of tourist girls were two cars below them. One was string-bean skinny with a mop of frizzy hair. The other, about Alex's size, was wearing a baseball cap and a Gap-khaki's ad-itude. As if the girl felt someone staring at her, she turned abruptly and looked up at Alex. Their eyes locked. Their remarkable silver-gray eyes, stormy irises outlined in inky black. Wolf-gray, witch eyes.
Alex felt the unexpected sting of hot tears. Dizzy suddenly, vision blurred, eyes burning, she gripped the seat railing to stop herself from pitching forward.
And then she heard a yelp of distress, a gasp—as if the tourist in the baseball cap had seen her and cried, "No!" A single word, called out in surprise, wounding as a blow. Alex heard it clearly, yet knew the girl hadn't said it aloud.
And there were the goose bumps again. And a raw emptiness in the pit of her stomach—as if she'd suddenly recognized, identified, a feeling she'd had all her life. Now it had a name. Loneliness.
Quickly, Alex turned away from the stranger and struggled to calm her pounding heart.
What was happening to her? The Ol' Wagon Wheel was just a lame ride, one of the oldest in the park, tamer than the Bullwhip or the Six Shooter. So why was she chilled, clammy, shaking? Why was she scared?
And why had a tourist's gaze left her light-headed, blinking black spots as if a flashbulb had gone off in her face?
"Is she your spitting image, or what?" Lucinda prompted.
"Oh, yeah, she's wearing my favorite color, puke pink," Alex heard herself say, sarcastically. "And I'd never leave home without my smart phone, right, Luce? We're a perfect match."
"You are," Evan insisted—no longer joking.
"Not," Alex protested.
"Get out," Luce protested. "How can you say that?"
"Look at her hair," Alex grumbled. "Under that cutesy little cap, it's all wavy with, like, reddish highlights."
"Exactly like," Lucinda smirked triumphantly, "what's under the blue dye job I personally gave you?"
"Did you see her? Did you see?" Beth tugged on Cam's arm. "How bizarre is that?"
"What?" Cam asked, trying to clear her head. Looking at the girl Beth was talking about had left her woozy. Her senses, at first blazingly sharp, had dulled painfully. It was as if she'd been staring directly into the sun. Her eyes were tearing. She could hardly see anything now—only shadows. "A couple of kids pointing at us?"
"No, that's not it," Beth asserted. "It's that other girl. The one not pointing."
What Cam had seen, before being temporarily blinded, was a fiery, gray-eyed girl with a shock of electric blue hair pinned at random angles to her skull. Something seemed familiar about her, Cam thought. And then, with a shudder, she thought, No!
Don't go there, she told herself. Pretend, just pretend you're sane.
Chapter 8 — Direct Connect
"Cam, don't you see it?" Beth squealed. "She's identical to you!"
"So you're saying I came two thousand miles from home to, what, find my evil twin?" Not daring to look back up at the girl in the fake-suede, fringed vest, Cam forced herself to laugh. "That wouldn't even make a bad TV movie of the week. Way to dish the compliments, Beth."
Beth was stunned. "This is no joke, Camryn. This is the weirdest thing ever. How could you not see it? Did you suddenly go off? Like at the—"
"Soccer game? Could we please not revisit that scene?"
Reluctantly, Beth dropped it. Cam put on her sunglasses. And the two friends spent the next five minutes in an uneasy silence broken only by the rusty creaking of the Ol' Wagon Wheel.
They were grateful when the ride ended, but Cam's relief was short-lived. As she and Beth hopped out of the cart, she saw the kids who'd been pointing—and knew they were waiting for her.
The tall boy with his fuzzy dreadlocks and the chubby girl with her Pippi-Longstocking-goes-punk braids were totally obvious in their staring. Only the blue-haired one with the fierce eyes was ignoring them. Stooped down, she was busily rummaging through her backpack.
Cam felt queasy, off balance, not really up for a meet 'n' greet—not with her eyes still burning from their midair clash, and her heart racing so fast she wasn't sure she could speak. What were the odds, she wondered desperately, of pretending not to see them and just moving on?
A deliberate tap on her arm told her, slim to none. It was the boy. "Any chance you'd take off that hat?" he blurted. "And the shades?"
And let them see her bleary eyes? "Uh—" Cam grew panicky and shot Beth a let's-make-a-quick-exit look.
Beth stood rooted.
The girl of a thousand braids spoke up. "Don't mind him, okay? Sometimes he slips back into his native language: rude."
In spite of herself, Cam grinned.
The girl continued, "We couldn't help noticing that you look so much like our friend here." She pointed to Alex, who was still kneeling on the ground, her back to everyone. "We thought if you took your hat off, and the sunglasses, we could see your face better."
"No," Cam blurted. "I mean, I can't. They're prescription," she lied. "I can't see a thing without them."
Beth was all over it. "We noticed it, too," she squealed. Then to Cam's astonishment, her best bud actually tapped backpack girl on the shoulder and said, "Would you mind turning around?"
Slowly, Alex got to her feet and turned toward Cam. As they stood face-to-face, the gasps from their friends were so pronounced that people nearby turned to stare.
They were exactly the same height.
They had the same build.
Their lips were full. Their noses gently sloping but bobbed, blunt at the nostrils. Their cheekbones wide, chins strong, and slightly, rebelliously, thrust forward.
Their expressions—of shock, distress, pure panic—were mirror images.
Cam saw her own eyes reflected in her sunglasses, only it was the other girl's amazing eyes.
Alex heard a heart beating wildly, only it wasn't her own. It was the girl in the baseball cap's.
"I look nothing like her."
Cam's hand flew to her mouth, as the exact same words came blasting out of the stranger's lips.
It was too much, way too much to take in, to deal with, to believe. They couldn't possibly look so much alike, say the same thing at the same time, even sound alike...
This can't be happening, Alex told herself. I'm just stressed about Mom—too little sleep, too many crazy dreams, too much work and worry. Taking a step back, she caught Tourista Number Two gaping at her. "Your friend is hallucinating." Lame, but it was the best Alex could do at the moment.
"Must be contagious, some airborne virus," Cam stammered defensively, "because your friends are just as delirious." It wasn't Beth who was seeing things, she thought, it was her—first the white-haired old man at the soccer match, and now a bad-tempered double in a theme park in the middle of nowhere.
Beth was astounded. Verbal attacks? Not Cam's style.
"We have to work here," Alex countered. "What's your excuse? Was it a choice between this and the nature walk?"
How'd she known that? Cam wondered.
Nature walk? Where'd that come from? Alex asked herself.
Evan and Lucinda were stunned. Okay, Alex had a bite to her, but only when provoked. And she knew better than to go at it with a paying customer. Alex needed this job.
Lucinda inserted herself between Cam and Alex, and extended her hand. "I'm Lucinda Carmelson, he's Evan Fretts, and this is Alexandra—Alex—Fielding. We live over in Crow Creek, and like Alex said, we work right here in the park. Alex's at the ticket booth," she couldn't help adding, as if that were something to be extra proud of.
To Cam's drea
d, Beth took a step forward and shook Lucinda's hand. "That's so cool. I'm Beth Fish, and this is Cam, Camryn Barnes. We're from—"
That was it. Cam had had enough weirdness for one week. She grabbed Beth's ropy arm and pulled her away, blurting, "We're from... not around here."
"Massachusetts," Beth said.
"Well, buh-bye," Cam called, racing off, dragging Beth with her. Despite her best friend's startled protests, she didn't slow down until she'd found the restroom, with its hokey COWGIRLS sign, and dashed behind it.
T*Witches: The Power of Two Page 4
