T*Witches: Building a Mystery

by Randi Reisfeld

  Karsh shook his head at her.

  "Uh, with... moon magick," she corrected herself, "and curing sun."

  "Stand back!" Karsh cackled, raising his hands.

  Suddenly, the twins were drawn together with such speed and force that they banged heads over poor Nguyen. "Our necklaces!" Cam shouted.

  "They're locked," Alex realized, feeling the violent pull of the gold chain on the back of her neck, and heat rising off the joined charms.

  "Help!" Cam squealed.

  "Do not forget your mission," Karsh warned. "Focus on the child!"

  And, in that uncomfortable position, faces mashed together across the bed, they tried.

  "Universe of love and health,

  Use these gifts of nature's wealth,

  To heal this child who wronged no one

  With moon magick and curing sun."

  The monitoring machines began to blink crazily. Nguyen stirred. "I'll go find his mother," Karsh said, rushing out of the room faster than they'd ever seen his old legs carry him.

  "Wait!" Alex hollered, but he was gone.

  "Oh, this is fun," Cam grumbled, trying to tug apart their locked amulets. "Now we're conjoined twins."

  A tiny voice mumbled something.

  Alex and Cam looked down. Nguyen's mouth was moving. And then his eyes flew open. He was as startled to see them tented above him as they were to hear his sudden surprised giggle.

  Thank you, oh, thank you! Cam was crying.

  "Cut it out," Alex whispered, but her eyes were also wet. And a moment later, she, too, was chanting, Thank you, oh, thank you, because their sun and moon charms had flown apart, tossing them backward into separate banks of flowers.

  A nurse, who'd seen the remarkable change in Nguyen on her computer at the nursing station, ran into the room just as Cam and Alex left.

  Hurrying toward the elevators, they passed the visitors' lounge. Cade was sitting there alone, his head in his hands. Instinctively, Alex took a step toward him, then stopped.

  "Go on," Cam urged. "I'm going to speed-dial Beth and tell her I'm on my way down. But Alex, until we find out who the messenger is, please, please be careful."

  Alex hugged her sister. "Totally," she promised, then went into the lounge. "Hey," she said, and Cade looked up.

  "Hey, yourself. Was that you in the mummy suit?"

  Alex laughed. "I was pretty surprised to see you there."

  He stared at her for a moment, then looked out the window. "My sister did it," he said. "She was driving home, with her roommate. Nguyen ran out into the road and she couldn't stop in time. She hit him. Hit and run—"

  "I sort of knew that," Alex admitted, sitting down beside him.

  "Well, the police don't. And neither does my father. He'd have her arrested or locked up in some loony bin if he found out. Karen's been getting into trouble since she was a kid, since our mom died. She never really got over it—"

  Alex sighed. "Trust me, I understand."

  Cade turned back to her. "I sort of knew you would," he said, taking her hand. "My dad, he put way too much on her. On Karen. She was only thirteen and he thought she ought to pitch in, take Mom's place. She was supposed to be like his little hostess and housekeeper, and a substitute mom to me. Plus he started traveling a lot about that time."

  "I'm sorry. But still..." Alex squeezed his hand. "I mean, what's that got to do with the robberies and Eddie?"

  "I took the money," Cade said. "I stole it—from the house, from my dad. He leaves a lot lying around—"

  "But why?" Alex asked. "Does it have anything to do with the other girl in the car? Was she driving?"

  "Jennifer? No, she is... I mean, she was Karen's college roommate. Jennifer Shepherd. They were freshmen together at Newton. But it was Karen. I wish it wasn't. Karen was driving."

  Alex nodded, closed her eyes.

  She seemed to be listening to something that Cade couldn't hear.

  After a moment, as if she were talking in her sleep, she said, "But Jennifer, the roommate, she had something to do with it, right? With the robberies."

  She heard an argument. Two girls quarreling—over the fallen boy's boy, she guessed.

  We've got to get him to a hospital!

  Leave him, Karen. Let's go.

  No, we can't. Jennifer, help me. Do you have your phone? Call 911. Hurry.

  You want to tell the police you were doing seventy?

  Was I?

  Come on, Karen. You're hysterical. I'll take you home. Your headlight's smashed. There's probably blood on the car. If you dad's there, we'll say that you hit a deer or something—

  No. We can't leave him. He's hurt. He's just a kid and he's hurt bad.

  Karen, get real! I'll come back. I'll take care of him, okay? I'll take care of everything. Let's go!

  "Jennifer," Alex said, opening her eyes with major effort. She felt dizzy now. There was ringing in her ears. "Jennifer Shepherd. She's ... blackmailing your sister."

  Cade nodded yes. "I bring her money every month. Cash. No checks. She's back in school now. Prescott Newton Junior College, just outside Boston. Karen dropped out. She can't do anything. She's a basket case."

  Jennifer Shepherd at Prescott Newton. Alex filed it away.

  "Karen told me everything," Cade continued. "I didn't know what to do. So I came to the hospital. And I saw him. I recognized him. He's Vietnamese. His mom cooks for the people next door to us. Nguyen used to visit her on weekends. I let them use our pool. I guess he went swimming and was running back across the road, to the Bannister house, where his mom works. It's just a dirt road through the woods. You hardly ever see a car there—"

  "And you've been giving her money, too—Nguyen's mother?" Alex said.

  "For the hospital bills. Their insurance doesn't cover much."

  Don't think of Sara, Alex warned herself. Stay focused.

  "And for flowers, sometimes." Cade shrugged. "Mrs. Tung likes flowers. And we take turns talking to Nu, his mom and me and Karen—"

  "Your sister's been here?"

  "Yeah. A lot. And, believe it or not, she's as bummed about Eddie taking the blame as you are. And as I am," he confessed. "It's over. Karen and I are going to the police. I was just hoping Nu would improve. It'd make it easier. Karen's in such rotten shape. The only time she seems okay is when she's holding his hand and talking to him. Sometimes you can almost believe he hears her, and he's like, trying real hard to get better."

  "You never know." Alex smiled at him. "That might make all the difference."

  Cam stepped off the elevator in the lobby. Beth was waiting. Eagerly.

  "They were here!" Leaping from her chair, she breathlessly repeated what she'd told Cam on the phone. "Shnorer and Madison. They both showed! I was going to call you a second before you called. Shnorer probably did his pen-throwing trick again, only whoever he tossed it at this time must've hurled it back. I don't know, but he came in clutching his paw and yowling about blood poisoning—even though there wasn't a scratch on him!"

  "Where is he now?" Cam pressed.

  Beth guessed he'd gone to the emergency room. She hadn't kept track because, like a minute later, she explained, Madison had appeared. The girl seemed not the least bit fazed to find Beth in the lobby. "I just came for my final checkup," Madison had said smoothly. "My fever's way down and I think—party-wise—I'm good to go!"

  "How freaky-deaky is that?" Beth demanded. "I mean, two out of three of them showing up!"

  "Try three out of three," Cam told her. "Cade's upstairs."

  "Not even!" Beth was flabbergasted. "So, what are we going to do? Should I call my mom to pick us up or are we staying?"

  The elevator dinged. They glanced at it as the doors opened and Alex charged out. "Beth, think your mom could drive us to Boston?" she asked, dashing toward them.

  "Absolutely not," Beth replied. "Anyway, what new do-good mission would I tell her we're going on?"

  Alex said, grinning wickedly, "This one's strictly a do-bad!"


  Chapter 19 – Time to Prepare

  Ileana gave up. That's what she told Karsh. "I give up. I just give up. I don't know how you ever kept track of them."

  She had come knocking on his door. Naturally, she hadn't waited for him to answer it. She'd dashed in, cape swirling, thick makeup blotchy, the nappy white wig sitting crooked on her head.

  What a fright she looked. Karsh's breath caught at the sight of her. Ileana, pale as death and dreadfully wrinkled. Was that how he looked?

  She must have been in a great hurry to have returned to the island in this condition. A good sign, Karsh decided, as the shock of seeing her passed. Never before had Ileana's vanity permitted her to be in public looking less than perfectly beautiful.

  "Come in, come in," he said, although she had already rushed past him and was pacing his book-lined parlor.

  "First let me say that I was marvelous. Flawless. Camryn and Alexandra accepted me as you without question. I was fully, brilliantly disguised. And my voice was perfect!"

  Oh, no, Karsh thought. Ileana was walking past the large gilt-framed mirror over his fireplace. He hoped she would not be disturbed by her image.

  Another first, he marveled. She passed the mirror without a glance.

  "After instructing the twins in proper healing procedure, I left them in the hospital room," she explained, "and I woke the nurse at the monitoring station so that she'd notice the boy was coming to. Then I spoke with his poor mother and explained that something wonderful had happened, that she should return to her son's room. There I was—thanks to your stubbornness, knowing only the basics of voice transmutation—wearing a wig, pounds of greasy makeup, and that depressingly shabby lab coat—"

  Ileana strode back and forth across the oriental carpet—which had flown long ago, but being older than Karsh, was now grounded by age. "And then I felt the chill," she confided, whirling suddenly, "and I knew that Thantos's underling was near, somewhere in the hospital. AIEEEE!"

  The hair-raising cry made Karsh clutch his heart.

  "Look at me! Look!"

  As Karsh had feared, his ward had caught sight of herself in the mirror.

  "How could you let me wander around like this?" Ileana demanded, scrubbing her face with the hem of her cape.

  Her scream had startled him so, he'd nearly lost sight of what was important. "You met the messenger?" he asked urgently.

  "I felt its presence. And of course I raced to find the children. I ran back to the room where I'd left them. But they were gone. Gone! Can you imagine how terrified I was? With Thantos's evil minion roaming the hospital. And I... suffering, sick with worry, wondering, even as I searched, whether the messenger might already have found them. Confound it, Karsh!" She hurled the wig across the room. "Am I to be cursed with your pasty skin and penciled wrinkles the rest of my days?"

  "Less, if you calm down. What did it look like?" Karsh insisted. "Did you recognize the person? Old, young, tall, stout, male, female? Was it even human? Tell me!"

  "I've been thinking," Ileana responded with cruel casualness. She threw herself into Karsh's favorite easy chair and rested her legs on his beloved old hassock.

  She kicked off his black velvet slippers, which had hung large and lopsided from her toes. "What if Thantos, who is, of course, a master of transmutation, really did decide to go after the girls himself? I know you said he would not. But... couldn't he have shape-shifted, turned himself into another creature, morphed into the messenger? The chill I felt was amazingly strong—as was the stench of evil that came with it."

  "It's possible. But as I told you, Thantos is quite used to putting others to work, using them to carry out his orders," Karsh said, agitated, angry.

  There it was again, Ileana noted, the strange change in Karsh's attitude when she suggested that Thantos might be the messenger.

  Ileana sat up abruptly. "Great and venerable tracker, what are you saying?" she asked sweetly. "What terrible secret have you kept? What is it that you know and I may not?"

  Now it was Karsh's turn to pace. "Only what I said," he answered roughly. "Lord Thantos has made a habit of shirking responsibility. Of letting others handle tasks he considers beneath him. A very bad habit. Tell me, did you find the twins, Ileana?"

  "I did. When I last saw them, they were in the hospital lobby, trying to coax their freckle-faced friend into getting her mother to drive them to Boston."

  "For what purpose?" Karsh wanted to know.

  "I didn't stay to find out. I tried to track the messenger. But I lost the scent in the emergency room. There, so many other smells overpowered it. Alcohol, iodine, disinfectants—"

  "Why would they want to go to Boston?" Karsh wondered aloud.

  "Shopping, I suppose. Marble Bay is no Beverly Hills. Except compared to Coventry."

  Karsh was thoughtful. At last he smiled. "You seem nearly recovered, Ileana. More yourself again. It's time, I think—"

  "Time?" Ileana looked at him curiously.

  "Time to prepare—"

  "Karsh... Lord Karsh... Do you mean it?"

  He nodded yes. "You've earned another lesson in transmutating. One you may be called upon to practice soon."

  Chapter 20 – Hit and Run

  At lunchtime on Friday in the high-school cafeteria, Cam whispered to Alex, "We can't cut last period. And I'm not taking a bus to Boston. Not the day before my Halloween bash."

  "I already told Emily we had some last-minute party shopping to do after school. I just didn't say where or how long it might take. Or..." Alex grinned at Beth. "How we'd get there."

  "What's that supposed to be, your winning smile or something?" the willowy girl grumbled. "Does the phrase 'forget about it' work for you? How about, 'no way'?"

  "Right," Cam said. "And how about, 'no bus—'"

  "Spoiled much? Anyway, it's not like skipping class. It's just a safety-rules assembly. Marble Bay's fire chief is going to tell us not to play with matches, okay?"

  "Hello?" Bree's fork, dangling a nibble of lettuce, stopped just short of her mouth. "What are you two plotting?"

  "They're going to college," Beth sneered, doing a great imitation of Brianna, Cam thought, taken aback.

  "Baaaap! You're out of the game show, Fish," Alex announced, "for not knowing the meaning of secret."

  Surprised at her own outburst, Beth looked apologetically at Cam. "I'm sorry," she said softly. Aware again of Bree's gaze, she went back to her aloof act. "I thought you wanted me to go with you. I didn't realize it was just a chauffeur you needed and that my mom was the stooge of choice."

  Bree cackled appreciatively. "You go, Fish."

  "Go Fish. It's a card game!" Kristen giggled.

  Amanda shook her red head sadly. "You guys, you're so negative. I mean, we're all working for a peaceful planet, aren't we? Just ignore them," she advised Alex.

  "Yeah," Sukari said, "everyone else does."

  "Well, here comes someone who won't." Bree began to wave frantically. "Jason, oh, Jason! Camryn's got a favor to ask you!"

  "Bree, that's not funny," Beth scolded as Jason Weissman, the shy senior who everyone knew was into Cam, came toward them.

  "Well, Cam and her clown--I mean clone—need a ride, don't they?" Brianna protested. "And who has a license and a pizza delivery truck?"

  "Déjà vu," Alex whispered to her twin. Jason had bailed them out before, when they'd needed a lift to help rescue a pop star. "Hey, Jason." Alex smiled big at the tall, dark, and studly boy.

  "Hey," Jason responded, his face turned to Cam.

  "Want to cut assembly and drive us to Newton?" Alex asked him, just to see if he was still conscious. A handsome hottie, Jason became a major Moe around her sister.

  "Sure," he answered, still not looking at Alex.

  "You don't have to," Cam said, shooting Alex a dirty look.

  "No problem," Jason said.

  It was as simple as that. They didn't even have to ride in the PITS van. Jason's own wheels, an ancient but lovingly restored Volvo, wa
s parked in the student lot. And Alex didn't mind stretching out in the backseat. In fact, it was an excellent place to jot down notes for a powerful hex.

  "What rhymes with Shepherd?" she called out to Cam, who was chatting up their driver.

  "Shepherd?"

  "Jennifer Shepherd. She's the girl we're going to see."