Double Dare

by Tia Mowry

  Either way, he’d figured out the perfect way to get at us. He knew the last thing we wanted to do was that crazy twins project, and that Ms. Xavier would believe what he’d overheard about the Sight even if he thought we were lying or crazy. Cassie was glaring at him, her fingers twitching. My twintuition couldn’t tell me whether she was considering punching him or strangling him, but it was working well enough to know we should get out of there, pronto.

  “Come on,” I said, yanking her past Gabe. “We don’t have time for this.”

  The weather was finally cooling off a little, and a breeze tickled my face as we stepped outside and turned toward home. “We need to figure out what to do about this,” Cassie said grimly.

  “What can we do? We’ll have to play along, I guess.” I shrugged.

  “And then what?” She kicked at a stone on the sidewalk. “Wait for her to blab to someone about our superduper twin powers? You can’t possibly believe she’s actually going to be able to keep this to herself.” She shook her head. “I should have guessed that stupid vision was something terrible,” she muttered.

  “What vision? The one you had today?” I realized we hadn’t shared our latest visions yet.

  “No.” She glanced over at me. “A while back, I saw the two of us talking to Ms. X in her classroom.”

  “Oh, right.” That must have been what she was referring to when we were with Ms. Xavier before. She’d told me about that one, but it hadn’t seemed important at the time. “So today it came true?”

  “Bingo. Another neutral vision turns out to be bad.”

  “Okay, but get this,” I said. “The good-bad thing might be changing, for real. Because I had a vision today that seemed super creepy . . .”

  I filled her in on my homeroom vision about Ms. Xavier.

  She listened with interest. “That’s the one you had just now?” she said. “When she almost caught you?”

  “Oh. Actually, no—I had the creepy skull room one this morning. The one I had just now was nothing important.”

  “Are you sure?” She shifted her book bag to her other shoulder as we paused to look both ways before crossing the street. “Because I would’ve said the same thing about the one we just lived out.”

  “Right.” She had a point, so I described the vision with Ms. Xavier and Megan as thoroughly as I could.

  “A ribbon?” Cassie interrupted when I got to that part. “And which desk was it on?”

  “The one right in front of Megan’s,” I said. “There was nobody sitting there.”

  “That’s Emily’s seat.” Cassie frowned. “Weird.”

  “Why?” I shrugged. “The ribbon was Aura’s school colors—green and gold. Maybe it just meant Emily won, like, a cheerleading award or something.”

  “Yeah, probably,” Cassie said slowly. “Only I had a vision about Emily today, too.”

  She told me about it. “An ambulance? Wow.” I thought for a second. “Okay, we should probably try to figure out what’s going on with her.”

  “Right. In all our spare time, when we’re not dealing with Ms. X, or our new grandmother, or our freaked-out mom, or—”

  “Okay, okay,” I broke in. “I hear you. But still, if Emily’s going to end up in an ambulance, we should probably try to stop it from happening.”

  “Yeah.”

  Just then I heard someone calling my name. Turning, I saw Liam racing after us, his backpack flopping against his back.

  “Oh, great,” Cassie muttered. “Geek, incoming.”

  “Hush!” I warned. Then I pasted a smile onto my face as my friend caught up to us. “Hey, Liam.”

  “I can’t believe I ran into you,” he exclaimed breathlessly. “I thought everybody’d be gone by the time I got out of the student council meeting.”

  “We had to stop in and talk to Ms. Xavier about our social studies project,” I told him.

  Cassie was already walking again. I followed, and Liam fell into step beside me. “Did you guys hear about this Truth or Dare thing?” he asked eagerly. “Everyone at the meeting was talking about it!”

  “Yeah, I guess.” I wasn’t paying much attention to the Truth or Dare craze, though a few people in my afternoon classes had been all atwitter about it.

  Liam grinned. “It’s spreading fast,” he said. “There are like five or six different sets of dares going right now.”

  “Really?” I said. “How’d that happen? I thought people were getting picked one at a time.”

  “Someone told me that all the guys in their art elective were dared to come to class without shirts on, and then each of those people got to choose someone after they did it.”

  “Yeah, I was there for that.” Cassie grinned. “It took Mrs. Ortega, like, ten minutes to notice. Megan got pictures on her phone. Epic.”

  “Anyway, I want to be ready in case someone chooses me tomorrow,” Liam said. “I’m going to make a list of dares and truth questions I can use.” He shrugged. “Bianca already warned me not to pick her, so I’m planning to try to really get Josh and Goober.”

  “Good idea,” I said, smiling briefly in spite of my distraction. Liam’s friends Josh and Goober were in the other section, so I didn’t know them that well, but the three of them loved to goof around together. I was just glad that Liam didn’t seem to be targeting me. “Good luck.”

  “Wait,” he said. “Will you help me come up with ideas? I want to make sure I have some really good stuff ready.”

  Normally that sort of thing would have sounded like a lot of fun. But today I wasn’t in the mood. Besides, Grandmother Lockwood could be waiting at our house right now. “Sorry, I can’t right now,” I said. “Um, rain check?”

  “But I want to be ready tomorrow.” He sounded disappointed. “Are you sure you can’t do it now?”

  “You heard her, dude.” Cassie grabbed my hand and pulled me along faster. “We’ve got to go. Like, now.”

  “Oh. Okay.” He stopped, watching us hurry on ahead.

  “Sorry!” I called over my shoulder, meaning it. And hating that I couldn’t tell him why I was too busy to hang out. If Cassie had given me half a second, maybe at least I could’ve told him our grandmother was in town. That would have explained things well enough.

  Oh well. Maybe someday soon I’d be able to tell him everything. But first I needed to find out more myself.

  “Come on,” I told Cass, putting on another burst of speed. “Let’s get home and see if Grandmother Lockwood is there yet.”

  7

  CASSIE

  WHEN CAITLYN AND I clattered into the house, Mom was in the living room paying bills at her desk. “Is she here?” I blurted out.

  Mom looked up, knowing immediately who we were talking about. “Nope, haven’t heard a peep from your grandmother all day.”

  She didn’t sound super bummed. In fact, I was pretty sure she was trying not to look smug about Grandmother Lockwood’s silence.

  Whatever. I dropped my bag on the bench by the door, then flopped on the sofa. It wasn’t as hot out as it had been lately, but that fast walk home had been enough to wear me out. Not to mention the super-stressful meeting with Ms. Xavier.

  Which reminded me. How could Caitlyn have agreed to do that stupid twins project? Was she crazy? We needed to have a serious talk about how to handle this. Maybe there was still time to convince Ms. X that Gabe had made the whole thing up, or . . .

  “We could try calling her,” Caitlyn was saying, which dragged me out of my thoughts.

  “Who? Granny L?” I said. “Good idea. What’s her number?”

  Cait shrugged and glanced at Mom. “Do you have it?”

  “I don’t think your grandmother is the type of person who carries a cell phone around with her everywhere.” Mom checked her watch. “I need to get dressed for work. I leave in less than an hour.”

  Once again, smug. And it was easy to guess why. Mom had made Grandmother Lockwood promise to get in touch before she had to leave at four. Which didn’t give her m
uch time to get here if we wanted to have any time to talk before Mom had to take off.

  I felt helpless and annoyed. Why was everything going wrong all of a sudden?

  My phone buzzed. It was a group text from Lavender, forwarding some photos of Sakiko Star picking up tin cans off her lawn. I glanced at it, but my gaze caught on Emily’s name in the list of recipients. With a shudder, I flashed back to the vision I’d had of her on the stretcher. Cait and I had seen scary stuff like that before. For instance, Caitlyn had recently had a vision of Liam bleeding all over the place at our pool party.

  That one turned out to be nothing very bad, though, I reminded myself as I clicked off my phone. Of course, that’s probably because it was Happy Shiny Caitlyn’s vision and not mine.

  That reminded me of Grandmother Lockwood’s surprised reaction when we’d told her about our visions being split into good and bad. It made me wonder exactly how much she could actually tell us about our weirdo power. She’d pretty much said that nobody knew a lot about the Sight.

  Caitlyn wandered in from the kitchen, slurping from a glass of sweet tea. “Want to talk?” she asked with a cautious glance toward Mom’s room. “If Grandmother Lockwood isn’t going to show today . . .”

  “She still has time.” I checked my watch and grimaced. Forty minutes and counting.

  Caitlyn sat down beside me, grabbing a coaster for her drink. “We could try calling her hotel,” she said. “I’m sure we can get the number from information and just ask the front desk to put us through.”

  “What’s the point?” I leaned back and stared at the ceiling. “Six Oaks is at least twenty minutes away.” Hopping to my feet, I headed over to grab my bag. “Guess I’ll get started on my homework.”

  Thirty-five minutes later, Mom stuck her head into my room. “I’m heading out in a sec,” she said. “Dinner’s in the fridge.”

  “Okay.” I got up and stretched, ready for a snack.

  As I followed Mom out into the narrow hall, the doorbell rang. Mom glanced back.

  “Expecting someone?” she asked.

  “Not anymore,” I said, following Mom to the door.

  I reached the living room just as Grandmother Lockwood stepped in, dressed in a tidy blue suit and pearls.

  “Verity!” Mom snapped. “We were expecting you earlier.”

  “You told me to be here before four.” Grandmother Lockwood’s cool gray eyes swept over Mom’s uniform. “I intended to arrive earlier, but I was delayed. No matter, though—it’s not four just yet, mmm?”

  “Technically, she’s right,” I said. “It’s like three of.”

  Mom sputtered. “That’s not what I— This is unacceptable! You’ll have to come back another time.”

  “What?” Caitlyn wailed. “Mom, no!”

  “You can’t send her away!” I added.

  “Oh, can’t I?” Mom was sliding dangerously close to scarymama territory.

  I opened my mouth to argue, but Caitlyn shot me a look. “Please, Mom,” she said softly. “She’s our grandmother, and we want to get to know her while she’s here. You’ve always told us that family is important.”

  That was something Mom liked to say, especially whenever she made us eat Aunt Cheryl’s disgusting green bean casserole. She glowered at all of us, I guess not knowing how to respond to that.

  “What do you think is going to happen, Deidre?” Grandmother Lockwood said. “I’m not going to do anything cruel or unusual to these girls. I promise.” A half smile played around the corners of her mouth.

  Mom didn’t look amused. “One can only imagine,” she shot back. “John told me the family history.”

  What did that mean? I traded a confused look with my sister.

  “We’re just going to talk, Mama,” Cait pleaded in her best goody-two-shoes peacemaker voice. “Promise!”

  “Yeah, me, too,” I put in, trying to imitate her tone and sickly-sweet smile.

  Mom sneaked a peek at her watch. “All right,” she said at last, though she still sounded annoyed. “I reckon there’s no harm in talking. But don’t leave this house until I get back.”

  Caitlyn and I quickly crossed our hearts. With one last glare at Grandmother Lockwood, Mom hurried out.

  “Well, then.” Grandmother Lockwood stepped out of the doorway and took a seat at the dining table. “Let’s get started.”

  Caitlyn and I wandered toward her. “Get started?” Cait echoed.

  Grandmother Lockwood dug into her large beige purse. “Yes,” she said. “I thought we’d talk a bit more, and then—”

  I gasped, not hearing the rest as she pulled out a battered leather-bound book. “The diary!” I blurted out. “I thought we’d never see it again.”

  She set the little book on the table. “I’m returning it to you. I wanted you to have it, or I wouldn’t have sent it to you in the first place.”

  “Is this the same diary the message board was talking about?” Cait asked. “The one some guy posted about finding in a secondhand shop?”

  “One and the same.” Grandmother Lockwood glanced at the diary, looking slightly peeved. “I can’t imagine how it ended up out of our family’s possession. In fact, it’s rather lucky that you stumbled upon that site, Caitlyn. Otherwise we might not have realized it wasn’t with your father’s old things anymore.”

  “How did you get it back?” I asked.

  Grandmother Lockwood shrugged, and for a second I thought she wasn’t going to answer. “It doesn’t matter,” she said at last. “The important thing is that it’s safe.”

  I didn’t think that was much of an answer. But I had more important questions in mind just then.

  “So what’s it say?” I asked, reaching for the diary.

  Cait grabbed it at the same time. Our hands brushed each other as we both touched the soft leather cover.

  Then I gasped, instantly overwhelmed by the strongest vision yet. I’d been looking at Cait and I could still see her, her eyes wide and her mouth forming a little O of surprise. But she was so faint she might as well have been a ghost.

  And this time, there was no brighter, more vivid Caitlyn to replace her. Instead, I saw a sunny outdoor scene. Cait and our grandmother were nowhere in sight. The only person there was a tall, skinny man with a long black braid. He was dressed in jeans and a dark shirt with a camera around his neck. But he wasn’t taking pictures—instead he was digging around in a large trash can sitting on the sidewalk in front of a tall hedge. Weird! As I watched, he straightened up, peering at something in his hand. I couldn’t quite see what it was, except that it was pretty small and glinted in the bright sunshine . . .

  “Whoa!” I gulped as I staggered back, breaking contact with Cait and the diary. “That was intense!”

  “Did you each have a vision?” Grandmother Lockwood demanded eagerly, leaning forward.

  I blinked at Cait, realizing she looked as stunned as I felt. “Yeah,” she managed to say. “It was a strange one.”

  “Mine, too.” With a shaky hand, I pulled out a chair and dropped onto it. “I mean, there wasn’t even anyone I knew in it this time!”

  Grandmother Lockwood’s eyes were sharp. “Tell me.”

  So I did, describing the scene I’d just witnessed. About ten words in, Caitlyn started nodding.

  “I saw the same thing,” she said when I’d finished. “I didn’t recognize the man either.”

  “Or the street,” I added. “It wasn’t anywhere in Aura, at least I’m pretty sure it wasn’t. The trash cans looked different from the ones here.”

  Our grandmother drummed her fingers on the table. “This man,” she said. “Tell me again what he looked like. Everything you can remember.”

  I shrugged. “Skinny, tall, boring clothes. He was white or maybe Latino, with a long, dark hippie braid down his back. But he wasn’t old enough to be a real hippie like our great-uncle Vern, probably only thirty or so. Camera around his neck.”

  “Not just any old camera,” Caitlyn put in. “It was a
serious-looking one with a big lens. Like you see nature photographers and people like that using.”

  “And you didn’t see anyone else?” Grandmother Lockwood prompted. “Nobody you knew, perhaps in the background?”

  “Nope,” I said. “Trust me, the whole scene is totally seared into my brain. There was nobody else there.”

  Cait nodded. “That’s different from any visions we’ve had before,” she said with a glance at me. “I mean, up until now we always saw the person we were touching.”

  “Yeah.” I turned to our grandmother. “How weird is that? I mean, does it happen a lot?”

  She cleared her throat. “It’s not unheard of.”

  That didn’t seem like much of an answer to me, especially paired with the surprised expression on her face when she’d heard about our vision. Once again I found myself wondering how much she really knew about the Sight.

  “In any case,” she went on before we could ask more questions. “We need to work out exactly where you girls are in the evolution of your powers, and how much you know about what you’re experiencing. Normally you would have been learning about the Sight since you were old enough to understand, preparing yourself just in case you were the one who ended up with it. The whole family would then help guide you through the transition into your full powers.”

  “Yeah.” I frowned. “Thanks to Mom, this is all pretty much brand new.”

  Verity sighed, her stern expression softening. “Don’t blame your mother too much,” she said. “She was probably hoping someone else in your generation would be the Seer. That would have been much easier for her, especially after what happened to your father.”

  I held my breath. Was she about to tell us—finally—how our dad had died? And whether the Sight had caused it? “What did happen to him?” I asked.

  Instantly, the stern face was back. “We’ll begin the testing right now,” she said. “There’s clearly no time to lose.”

  8

  CAITLYN