T*Witches: Building a Mystery

by Randi Reisfeld

  "It's a good idea to meet them now," Beth said. "What are you going to do when school starts, Alex—just only hang out with Cam?"

  Alex shrugged off the girl's chilly tone. It took work, she knew, for Beth Fish to frost anybody. Basically cheerful and easygoing, Beth was still hurting over Cam's instant bonding with Alex. Now she had to deal with Alex and Dylan's mutual admiration society.

  Camryn Barnes, premonition princess, sensed it, too. "This place is the pits, right, Beth?" Sharing an inside joke, Cam tried to reassure her best friend.

  It worked. Beth giggled. "Pits. P-I-T-S," she spelled it out for Alex. "That's short for Pie In The Sky, remember?"

  "How could I forget? Everything in this cutesy town has a cutesy name." Alex rolled her eyes—black-rimmed, silver gray, identical to Cam's.

  "Come on, Alex," Cam urged again. "I promised the Pack I'd introduce you—"

  "The Pack, ugh." Alex wrinkled her nose at the lame name. "Talk about cutesy." The Six Pack was what Cam and her pals called themselves because there were Cam and Beth and four other girls—

  "Only three are going to be here for sure," Cam said—just to show off, Alex figured, just to prove she could hear her twin's private thoughts.

  Cam hadn't even known she could read minds until Alex showed up.

  "Sukari, Amanda, and Kristen. Brianna may not make it," Cam continued. "She's expecting a call from her dad."

  "Bree's dad lives on the West Coast." Beth twirled a finger around one of the thousand corkscrew curls that framed her freckled face. "He's this big Hollywood producer or something—"

  Bree. Brianna. The name was familiar to Alex. Then she remembered. Bree was bulletin girl, the gushing gossip whose phone conversation Alex—with her extraordinary hearing, which had become even keener since meeting Cam—had overhead her first morning in Marble Bay. "Not Bree, the human Hoover. She who sucks up dirt—"

  Beth giggled again. "You have to get to know her," she said, quickly switching gears. "I mean, Bree can sound all cutting and judgmental, but she's actually supersensitive, even if she acts harsh—"

  "She probably won't even be here," Cam tried to reassure Alex, "but you'll really like Amanda, Sukari and Kristen. Come on, Alex, you're going to meet them sooner or later. School starts day after tomorrow. Don't you want to know a few kids before you get there?"

  "Excuse me?" Alex said. "What part of 'No Way' don't you understand? Want me to spell it out for you?"

  A chill breeze swept by unexpectedly. The wave of frigid air raised goose bumps on Alex's arms and prickled up the back of her neck

  "Cam?" she asked softly, rubbing her arms, feeling her jaw tighten against the cold. "Do you feel that?"

  "Feel what?" Beth asked, looking around.

  "Cold," Cam replied, "like a sudden drop in temperature. And—help!" Cam's shoulders hunched. She spun around fast. "Cut it out," she warned. "Who pulled my hair?"

  Alex's eyes widened. "Did you say something?"

  Annoyed, Beth folded her arms. "She said she's cold. And then someone pulled her hair, obviously some joke."

  "Wait," Alex continued to Cam. "Didn't you also just say you had something important to tell me?"

  "Oh, man. Not again. Not now," Cam groaned. But oops, there it was—she felt that icy chill. Alex obviously heard a voice, a voice that wasn't Cam's. Cam tried to keep it together. "I just wanted—"

  "Ow!" It was Beth this time. She jumped about a foot off the ground, clutching her bottom. "Did you do that?" she demanded of Alex. "Because if you did, that was gross and totally rude."

  "—I just wanted you to meet my friends," Cam finished her sentence on automatic.

  Her twin's slightly shaky voice brought Alex back to the reality zone. Shivering, trying to figure out what was happening, she'd spaced. But she had definitely heard a sharp, oddly familiar voice say, Ditch the frizzy-haired friend; I've got something important to say.

  So what was it going to be—dump Beth on command and wait out here in the arctic chill for something weird to happen or go inside where a bunch of spoiled but safe fourteen-year-olds were waiting to check her out?

  No contest.

  "Meet your pals?" Alex exclaimed. "Can't wait!" She hurried into Pie In The Sky.

  Chapter 3 – The Warning

  The pizza place was comfortingly busy. From just inside the door, Alex inspected the noisy place, while Cam checked the big booth near the front window that was practically the property of the Six Pack.

  "They're not here yet," she said. "Are we early?"

  "Just lucky," Alex cracked.

  Beth checked her watch. "Five minutes late," she reported.

  A waitress in sandals and sunglasses sauntered over to the girls. She looked at Beth. "Ugh. You've got something stuck in your teeth," the waitress told the rangy girl. "Something green and gross."

  "Oh, no!" Beth frantically brushed a finger back and forth over her front teeth. "How heinous. Did I have it all the time we were outside?"

  "I don't see—" Cam began, as Beth bolted for the bathroom.

  "Over there, kids," the waitress cut in, pointing to the tiny table wedged into the back corner, directly under the noisy dripping air-conditioning unit.

  "Are you new?" Cam asked.

  "What's that supposed to be, a blond joke?" the waitress demanded.

  "No way," Cam said reddening. "It's just that I'm, you know, like a regular here and I've never seen you before and I usually sit at the big booth."

  "She's expecting friends," Alex explained.

  "Believe me, girls, your party has arrived."

  "Do I know you?" Cam stared at the waitress. "There's something so familiar about you."

  Ever since her twin's arrival, all of Cam's senses had become sharper, but most especially her sight. Now she squinted hard at the waitress's sunglasses.

  At first she saw only her own reflection in the dark lenses. Then the supersight she'd developed lately kicked in. The lenses began to lighten until they were almost as transparent as ordinary glasses. And she saw the waitress's eyes. They were gray, a fierce and fiery gray, outlined in black.

  Cam gasped. "O.M.G.! Your eyes. You have the same eyes as us! Are you...?"

  "No, no, no, no!" The waitress stepped back, offended. "Spare me. Don't even go there! Do I look old enough to be your mother?!"

  "How did you know what she was thinking?" Alex demanded.

  "But your eyes," Cam said. "I only know one other person with those eyes. Not counting Alex, of course."

  "Officer Ileana!" Finally Alex had been able to place the voice.

  "Call me Goddess," their waitress muttered.

  They'd met her once before, Alex realized. She'd been dressed as a policewoman that time. She was the bony man's partner—the old man who Alex knew as Doc and Cam called the bleacher-creature. He'd been in a police uniform, too, the first time they saw him together. His badge had identified him as Officer Karsh.

  Whatever his real name was, he had come to them in dreams all through their strange, separated childhood. And only a month ago, he and his beautiful young colleague had saved them from the hulking, bearded bad guy in the hobnail boots. Officer Ileana, this very waitress, this stunning woman, had accused the creepy man—who'd said he could take them to their birth mother—a dangerous liar, maniac and a murderer.

  "Over there," Ileana demanded, shooing the twins toward the isolated table under the air conditioner. "We'll need privacy."

  "Are you undercover?" Cam asked.

  "More like underappreciated," Ileana replied sullenly. "Let's go. Move it."

  "No." Cam bristled unexpectedly. "It's too noisy, too cold, and our friends are meeting us up front."

  "They'll be late," the waitress said, and, when Cam looked at her curiously, she added, "The roads around here are awful. They probably got a flat or something."

  Grasping Alex's arm, Cam turned on her heels and headed for the Six Pack's booth next to the front window.

  "I told Karsh you were diff
icult," Ileana said, following them.

  "I am not difficult," Cam grumbled over her shoulder.

  "Sit!" Ileana commanded.

  Obediently, Cam and Alex slid into the booth. They sat facing the plate-glass storefront. Daylight streaming in the wide window hurt Cam's sensitive gray eyes. Alex squinted up at Ileana, who stood looming over the table, menus in hand.

  "I'd like a diet Coke and—" Cam began.

  "I am not here to take your orders," the sunglasses-wearing waitress cut her off. "Au contraire. I'm here to issue some. A warning, actually. You remember—"

  "Ileana... Goddess... whatever. You were the one who whispered to me outside, right?" Alex asked.

  "And pulled my hair?" Cam added, narrowing her eyes at the frustrated witch.

  "Wake up and smell the pepperoni. I was trying to get your attention," Ileana hissed back through gritted teeth. "A task I'm still working on."

  "Well, you didn't have to pull my hair," Cam insisted.

  But Alex's attention was sidetracked by someone walking past Pie In The Sky—a long-limbed boy wearing faded jeans and a black jacket so old and worn that the leather was flaking.

  He was cute, definitely, but beyond that... there was something about him that made Alex's heart quicken, that heated her chilled blood and set her face aflame.

  The boy seemed to sense that someone was watching him. He glanced at the window, straining to see inside. His intense eyes, ringed by pitch-black lashes, were cool and blue.

  Whipping off her glasses, Ileana fixed Cam with a gray-eyed glare. "All I ask is five uninterrupted minutes of your precious time. Five minutes of your undivided attention. If you'd caught my drift outside this Parmesan palace, it would've been a lot easier—on me. But noooo. Why should anyone make things easy for me! Okay, here's the drill. I came to warn you. Someone will come to you offering friendship praise, love... whatever you find attractive—"

  "Wow, who was that?" Alex watched leather boy move out of sight.

  "Hello!" Ileana roared. "I'm speaking to you—both of you! I didn't pop in for the garlic knots! I'm here to warn you against—"

  "Warn us against what?" Alex asked, tuning back in to the conversation.

  "Listen to me!" the witch-waitress ordered. "I haven't much time left. You met him once, the renegade tracker in the hobnail boots. He's a murderer. And a coward. Since he dares not show his bearded face again, he'll send someone else to lure you to him. Beware, then—of anyone trying to get close to you, anyone who seems drawn to you. And"—she looked pointedly at Alex—"anyone you feel drawn to."

  Bearded face. Hobnail boots. The guy who tried to get them this summer, Cam remembered.

  Beth was heading for their booth. "There was totally nothing in my teeth," she grumbled.

  Cam and Alex exchanged guilty glances, then turned back to Ileana, who'd obviously used the ruse to get rid of Beth for a few moments.

  The kitchen's swinging door flapped loudly. The haughty waitress was gone.

  Sitting between Cam and the wall, Alex tried to slide out of the booth to follow her. "Move," she implored her twin

  "Oh, no," Cam said. She was looking out the window at a trio of laughing girls piling out of a red SUV. "Great timing. My friends are here."

  Alex glanced once more at the kitchen door, but she knew Ileana had left the building.

  "What did you tell your friends about me?" Alex wanted to know.

  Cam shrugged. "Nothing much."

  "Just about Montana, Alex. And that you two are sisters and how her mom isn't your mom but maybe your mom is hers. Nothing much." Beth laughed.

  "Hey, Cam." A tall, good-looking boy in a waiter's apron was striding toward their table. "I didn't see you come in. Hey, hi, Beth. How's it going, uh, Alex, right?"

  She'd met him before. Jason was his name. He was going into his final year at Marble Bay High, Alex remembered. A hottie with a driver's license, who'd helped them out of a jam a couple of weeks ago. Jason, the lovesick senior who was into Cam.

  "Oh, hi, Jase." Cam threw him a smile. It wasn't a hundred-watt halogen, but the boy seemed satisfied.

  "What can I get you guys?" he asked, not taking his eyes off Cam.

  "Um, where's... the new waitress?" Beth asked, peering around him. "Blond with sunglasses, likes to play tricks on unsuspecting customers?"

  Jason was clueless. "There is no new waitress," he said.

  Chapter 4 – Building a Mystery

  Cam's friends stormed the table. They were all talking at once, complaining about the flat they'd gotten on the way over, teasing Jason, high-fiving Beth, ragging on Cam about the soccer game she'd blown the day before summer vacation, and demanding to know what her big surprise was.

  Then they saw Alex.

  "Who... I mean, what...?" The gracefully athletic Asian-American girl with the glossy black braid actually clutched her heart and took a step backward. "Is this a joke?"

  Who's the neat freak? Alex wondered, taking in the girl's fresh white tee, crisp khakis, and spotless white sneakers.

  Telepathically, Cam did the cheat sheet. Kristen Hsu, she silently told Alex. She's artistic... very into computer graphics. Which, I guess, is kind of precise and orderly—

  What a relief, Alex responded. Knowing that we'll have so much in common.

  Eyes and mouth wide open, Kristen turned to see whether the others had checked out Alex yet.

  "So, uh, you guys are... related." Sukari Woodward, pretty, plump, and brown-skinned, sporting granny glasses and a peroxide-blond 'fro, laughed out loud at herself. "Brilliant, right? Just me keepin' it real."

  "And that, folks," Cam narrated, "was the hypothesis of Dr. Sukari Woodward, brainiac and science buff."

  "Related?!" Kristen cracked up. "It's like the Olsens on steroids!"

  "You met her in a theme park in Montana" Sukari said. "Dag, what was it called, Xerox-land? Do they make copies of everyone who goes there?"

  "No," Kristen said, "I bet they have a ride called the Cy-clone. Get it, clone?"

  "Well, I think it's cosmic," a whispery voice noted. "Totally astral." This from the third member of the trio—a sunny redhead in earthy sandals, a gauzy Indian-print sarong and one long feather earring peeking through her tangle of curls. "You two look almost identical."

  "It's the blue streaks," Beth pointed out Cam doesn't have any."

  "No, really, Cami," the redhead said, "she is so the yin to your yang!"

  "Ladies and gentlemen, Amanda Carter," Cam reported.

  Laughing, 'Manda took a seat.

  Jason took their orders.

  Sukari took over the bench on Beth's side of the booth.

  And Kristen took out her cell phone and speed-dialed Bree.

  They had been warned. The bearded psycho in the heavy boots was trying to find them. He couldn't go after them himself, so he was sending someone else. "And we're supposed to watch out for what?" Cam asked on the way to school two days later.

  "Anyone who's drawn to us or who we're drawn to," Alex recited.

  "Kind of cramps your social life," Cam observed as a crossing guard signaled that they could step off the curb now.

  "After meeting your crew, that's fine with me," Alex cracked.

  A block away, the plaza in front of Marble Bay High was swarming with kids. All of them strangers to her except for Dylan, who had left for school with his own pals. And five of Cam's Dirty Half Dozen, which was one of the names Alex had started calling the Six Pack. The Lollipop League was another. And the Jellybean Jar.

  "Dag, it must feel whack," she remembered Sukari saying, "leaving all your homeys behind."

  And then Kristen, twirling her silky black braid like a bullwhip, going, "Didn't you hear her, Suki? She only had two friends in Wyoming. Lulu and Evan—"

  "Montana," Amanda had corrected in her breathless little whisper. "And it was Lucinda, not Lulu. Lucinda and Evan. Anyway, that's not what she meant, Kristen. You meant you only had two best friends, right, Ali?"

  Red c
urls, ebony braid, peroxide-blond 'fro. They looked more like they belonged in a jellybean jar than a soda pop Six Pack, Alex remembered thinking.

  She'd had a monster headache by the time they left PITS. And so had Cam, they discovered, when they compared notes on the way home.

  By the time they'd reached Cam's house, the worst of Alex's pain had let up. Only to be replaced by a bigger headache: Dylan.