"You mean how the two of you freaked when everyone was saying how you looked alike?"
"No, not that—"
"Then what?" Beth was clueless.
Dejected, Cam pushed off from the railing. What was she supposed to say? Did you see us doing what we couldn't possibly have done—fixing a busted, rusted old ride, rescuing a family from certain death?
It was crazy, she thought. Beth hadn't felt the irresistible force that had drawn Cam, and the stranger who looked like her, to the Ferris wheel. No one had.
And no one, not even Alex, seemed to have noticed the black-bearded guy in the shadows, whose gaze had left Cam feeling weak.
Or the other one, who'd appeared just before the windstorm, the skinny, old man...
No. Nuh-uh. Could not have happened, Cam told herself. Way too weird. If it had been real, any of it, everyone in the park would have seen it.
Okay. It's over, she decided. Not gonna obsess about it one more second. Not gonna talk about it. Ever!
Aiding and abetting Cam's decision, the girl, Alexandra Wilding, or Fieldhopper, or whoever she was, had vanished.
"So what happened? Why'd you take off like that?"
Cam slipped her sunglasses out of her pocket and put them on—and lied. "Couldn't find my shades. Figured I left them back here. And, see—I did."
Alex was collapsed on a bench a few yards from the Ferris wheel when Luce and Evan found her. She had no idea how long she'd been sitting there. Long enough, she guessed, to go from wondering if she'd really stopped a fatal accident from happening to trying to figure out how.
With help, was the answer. The girl, the one with the same gray eyes as her own, had something to do with it.
The million bees buzzing in her brain had quieted to a tolerable hum now. Quieted enough for her to hear Lucinda say breathlessly, "Als, hey! What are you doing back here? Five minutes ago you couldn't get away from the Ol' Wagon Wheel fast enough."
"Yeah, why'd you dump us like that?" Evan demanded. "Man, I never saw you move so fast. Now you see her, now she's a blur streaking through the tourist herd."
"You don't look all that good," Lucinda added.
"Yeah, well you're not exactly rockin' that outfit too," Alex snapped. She felt wiped out. Obviously, it showed.
Lucinda shot back, "Sorry I'm not as cool as your new Boston buds."
"Mine?!" Alex said, "You're the one who pushed for the Kodak moment with them."
"And you're the one who looks just like them," Luce retorted. "Like that Camryn one, anyway."
"Not," Alex barked. "You want to know why I cut out? Because I was sick of you guys riding me about looking like a tourist. Can we go now? I am so done with this day."
"You should've said something, Al. I thought something happened to your mom," Evan said, as they walked toward the gravel pit reserved for employee parking. "I thought you got, you know, like one of your 'feelings.'"
"Oh, no, did you?" Lucinda gasped. "Is your mom okay?"
Alex shuddered and rubbed her arms. "I won't know till I get home, will I?"
Okay, memo to self, she thought as they piled into Evan's rusty red pickup. I'm freaking out here. But it's because of my mom. That cough. Oh, man. It's got nothing to do with... what's-her-name?
The girl who's supposed to be like me.
Is... like me. In a way. She knew about the wheel. She was staring at the rusted bolt when I showed up. What is happening here? How could I—or, okay, even we—stop the Ferris wheel free-fall fiasco?
I don't even know why I was there. And why was she there? And how us both being there changed something. Stopped a disaster.
Oh, man! Like my life isn't screwy enough, now there's this? I'm just not going there. It's over.
"Maybe we should go back and find her," Evan was saying. When Alex didn't respond, he leaned over and rapped lightly on her head. "Hello, anybody home? You listening?"
"You've got a fine grasp of the obvious, Fretts," Alex answered. "I'm doing my best not to."
They were almost at her turnoff. She could see the stop sign just ahead. She unzipped her backpack and began to hunt for her keys.
Evan shook his head. "Then you'll have to do better, 'cause you've got to hear me. She didn't resemble you, Allie. She twinned you."
"What if she is?" Lucinda chimed in. "I mean, what if you were separated at birth—"
"You saying it couldn't be?" Evan narrowed his soft brown eyes.
"My mom would have told me, that's all. It's full disclosure between the two of us. Always has been."
"If I were you, I'd have to know who she is—and why she just happened to drop into your life right now," Lucinda said.
"Good thing you're not me, Luce, because I've got a lot of other stuff to deal with now. Stuff called real life." They hit the hole in the road, the one Beeson kept saying he'd fix.
Lucinda squealed as Evan's truck bounced and clanked over the crater. "Do this one thing for me, Als," she said. "Let's find her. At the very least, find out when her birthday is. If it's the same as yours, you know, Halloween—"
"Oooooo, stop. You're spooking me," Alex cracked sarcastically. "Can we please just drop it? First of all, I'm so not interested in finding out anything about her. And secondly, one day at Big Sky is usually enough for any tourist. She's gone. Boo-hoo, I may never see my twin sister again."
The trailer was jut ahead, propped up on cinder blocks. Home sweet home.
"Oh, you will," Lucinda sounded totally sure of herself.
"And you know that, exactly how?"
"I just do," Luce announced. "You're not the only one who gets hunches."
Her mother was home early. Their old Chevy was parked in the rutted weeds beside the trailer. "Should we wait?" Evan called as Alex sprinted from the pickup.
"No. Catchya later," she told them. "I'll call you."
Sara was at the kitchen table, staring out the window at the mountains. She turned as the door creaked open. And Alex was frightened by what she saw.
Her mother looked like a skeleton. White-faced, bony, the hollows around her eyes were dark with exhaustion. The skin pulled tight around her cheeks. For a minute, a split second, she reminded Alex of the nightmare man. Then her mom crumpled up a piece of paper lying on the table and grinned a big, loving, glad-to-see-you grin at Alex, and she looked like herself again.
"What's that?" Alex nodded at the paper in her mom's hand. "Another rent hike notice from Beeson?"
"Nothing for you to worry about," Sara said, her voice raw and raspy.
She was lying. Alex knew it, knew her mom better than anyone in the world. "Wouldn't be from the clinic, would it? I mean, you wouldn't mess with me, Mom, and not tell me if the news is bad?"
"How could I? Don't you always know the truth anyway? Ever since you were a little girl—"
"That letter. It's not from Beeson, is it? And the lab results. You already got them, right?"
"Oh, baby," Sara said, tears spilling from her dark eyes. "I don't know why you were given to me. I'm such a lousy... liar. I'd do anything to protect you, baby. Anything, if I could."
Suddenly, Alex didn't want to know the truth. "How much is he threatening to raise us today?" she asked, turning her back on her mother, walking over to the fridge and pretending to care what was inside.
Sara coughed harshly, tried to clear her throat. "Don't worry. It's not all that bad, Allie," she said, her voice muffled by the dish towel pressed to her lips.
Later that night, Alex woke to get some water. On her way to the kitchen, she passed her mother's door—an accordion-pleated piece of stiff gray vinyl that hung from an overhead track. Behind the rigid curtain, Alex heard the thick rattle and wheeze of Sara's breathing.
The crumpled letter was on the kitchen table. It had been smoothed out and lay next to her mother's empty coffee cup, as if Sara had been studying it before she went to bed.
Had it been left there for Alex to find? Did her mom want her to know what was in the note? The first
thing she saw was the clinic letterhead. The next thing her eyes fell on was the word CHEMOTHERAPY.
Sara Fielding had lung cancer. Surgery was not an option, the note said, but a regimen of radiology and chemotherapy might delay the spread of the disease, possibly even put it into remission. In order to begin treatment, the letter requested that Sara fill out the following information about her health insurance.
What health insurance, Alex thought. They had none. And then it hit her full out. Lung cancer. How bad was it?
Not all that bad, her mom had said. But they'd been talking about the bogus rent increase, right? Or was it the cancer her mom had really meant? It's not all that bad, Allie. Did that mean she wasn't going to die?
Alex sat down slowly, sank into the same wobbly chair Sara had been sitting on earlier. She looked out at the mountains, which were visible even in the dark of night and resembled, Alex used to think, a dragon's back. A zigzag of peaks. Ridges silhouetted against a star-splashed moonlit sky. It was the same full moon she'd seen that afternoon, up early and pale over the Ol' Wagon Wheel.
She thought of Cam then, of seeing the girl on the other side of the run-down ride. Alex raked her hands through her purposely stringy, blue-streaked hair. Except for their height and eyes being the same—and that weird thing that'd happened between them--she was nothing like the pampered princess from Massachusetts.
And didn't this prove it, Alex thought, grabbing the letter and shaking it angrily. Would little Miss Four-tickets-at-twenty-five-bucks-apiece have to worry about health insurance if anyone in her family got sick? No way.
Who cared anyhow? She wasn't part of some stupid sitcom family. It was just her and her mom now, and they'd gotten along fine, just the two of them.
Well, fine might not be the right word. They'd gotten by. They'd survived. And they were going to keep on surviving, too. Both of them. No way was Sara not gonna get the treatment she needed. Even if Alex had to work two shifts at the park or quit school and get a real job. There was no one dying around here. Least of all the one person in the world Alex trusted and loved completely.
Chapter 11 — What Beth Believes
Saddlebrook Ranch was massive. "Horse Whisperer Deluxe," Beth called the huge lodge with its soaring ceilings and oversized log furniture. It had its own stables, tennis court, and even a private spring-fed swimming pond.
It also had its own strange vibe, Cam thought. A vibe that was especially strong every time she passed the portrait in the living room. Maybe it was the great height at which the painting was hung, or its subject's dark stare and cold smile, that made it seem so menacing. And disturbingly familiar.
"Is that the guy who owns this place?" Cam asked her dad, the day after their trip to Big Sky. She was on her way to meet Beth at the tennis court. Hugging her racket, shivering slightly, she paused before the painting.
"I don't know," Dave admitted. He was wearing boxer swim trunks as flashy as his Hawaiian shirt, and had a towel flung over his shoulder. "I never actually met the man. He's a friend of a client I defended. Hey, you're all goose bumps. What's up?" he asked, putting an arm around her shoulder.
"He looks like someone," Cam said softly, remembering the burly man in the wheelhouse shadows.
"Well, if he's our mysterious host," Dave chuckled, leading her toward the door, "then he is someone. One of your major someones. Head of some powerful corporations, mega-rich—"
I think I saw him yesterday, Cam wanted to say, but didn't. Instead she hugged her dad and, as he set off to join her mom at the pool, Cam hurried across the manicured lawn toward Beth, who was practicing serves.
She'd decided, Cam reminded herself, to will herself to drop the whole Ferris wheel episode. The eerie eavesdropper, the bony old man, and, especially, all the weird stuff that had happened with Montana-girl. It was bad enough she was freaking; she didn't need to advertise the fact to friends and family. Chalk up yesterday to a possible flu symptoms mixed with jet lag and soccer guilt.
By the time she got to the court, she'd half convinced herself that the only connection between Saddlebrook's Major Someone and Big Sky's Mr. Weirdo was that they were both evidence of her near mental meltdown.
When Cam put her mind to something, she was usually successful. Today, her goals were to crush Beth, minimum two out of three, and to totally delete from memory everything that might, or might not, have happened yesterday. She would've done it too, if Beth hadn't suddenly displayed a seriously annoying stubborn streak.
Her best bud chose their tennis match to begin needling Cam about her "townie twin." At least Beth got props, Cam reluctantly admitted, for not bringing the whole deal up in front of her parents.
"You guys are the same height!" Beth pointed out, as she too easily connected with a Cam-slam just inside the baseline.
"So are about half the other fourteen-year-olds around the globe," Cam contended, hitting to Beth's backhand, forcing her bud to hustle to connect—which the leggy girl did a lot more effortlessly than Cam anticipated. "Your point?" she demanded, missing Beth's return.
"My point—exactly! It's thirty-love," Beth announced the score gleefully, then served again. Smashing the ball past Cam, she added, "You've got the same body structure, too—"
"Which means nothing. Come on, Beth, can't you see how you're reaching here?" Cam retrieved the missed ball and tossed it back to Beth, who served again.
This time, Cam executed an awesome if totally accidental drop shot. Which forced Beth to breathlessly bolt to the net. Where she managed to shout between gasps, "I've never seen... two faces... so identical."
"Let it go, Beth," Cam warned, feeling her determination to move on crumbling. "Just drop it."
Somewhere in the back of her head, a little voice asked why she was getting so upset.
"And Cami, the eyes. She's got to be your twin."
Cam raced forward. Ignoring the voice, ignoring the ball, she met her bullheaded best bud at the net. "No, she doesn't!"
"My game!" Beth exulted, then she cleared her throat and got serious. "Okay, look. Can I ask you something? Promise you won't get mad?"
Instead of growling, "It's too late for that," Cam frowned and grumbled, "Go for it."
"Something else that's been sorta bothering me." Beth paused, embarrassed. "Remember in biology? The stuff on genetics? You know, two blue-eyed parents... well, the odds are pretty slim that they'd have a kid who didn't have blue eyes, too. And yours are—"
Cam cut her off. "Logic takes a holiday in your hypothesis. Gray is a shade of blue."
"And your intense shade of gray—well, it's exactly the same as hers."
"Coincidence alert! That's all it means. Can we get back to our match now? I'm about to fry you, Fish-sticks."
Cam turned on her heels and stomped back to the service line. She smashed a wicked serve over the net.
Beth hit it back smoothly. "I think she's your twin. Your biological twin," she asserted.
"Do you even know what you're saying? There's been only one of me in my family for like, ever! That means, what, that my parents got rid of a twin?"
"Maybe she was kidnapped," Beth offered.
"Kidnapped, right. Like Marleigh Cooper?"
"It's possible," Beth insisted.
"No, it isn't. If anything like that happened, I'd know. Finding a kidnapped baby—hello, their whole lives would be all about that. You know my parents."
"But do you?" Beth challenged.
"What are you talking about?"
"Maybe you were adopted," Beth blurted out.
"Maybe you're insane!" Cam snapped.
"Cam, there is no other rational explanation!"
"Rational? You want rational?" Cam threw her whole body into her shot, slamming the ball so hard, her tennis racket went flying—right at Beth, who ducked just in time, then skidded and fell on the red clay court.
Cam was as shocked as Beth. Mortified, she hurtled over the net to her fallen friend. "I can't believe I just did that. I am so sorry�
��"
Slowly getting to her feet, Beth brushed red dust off her shins and waved Cam off. "Forget it. No damage done. Everything's all right—"
"No," Cam asserted suddenly. "Everything's not all right. Everything's wrong. Weird. Whack." A lump formed in her throat, strangling her voice, flooding her eyes with tears. "Bethie," she whispered desperately, "I think there's something wrong with me."
T*Witches: The Power of Two Page 6
