Double Vision (8 page)

THE NEXT MORNING I must have tried on every outfit I owned, struggling to decide what to wear. It was Friday, and now that things were going so well with Megan and the gang, I was fixing to get myself invited to their weekend plans.

Well, it was
mostly
going well anyway. Megan was already starting to feel like a real friend. We actually had a ton in common: we liked a lot of the same stuff, from fashion to movies, and we laughed
at each other's jokes. Most of the minions seemed to accept me, too. If Megan thought I was cool, that was good enough for them.

Then there was Lavender. She was going to be a tough case, I could tell. Oh, she didn't exactly say or do anything wrong or mean or whatever. But she didn't exactly act super friendly either. She mostly avoided me, and I caught her watching me with narrowed eyes more than a few times.

I wasn't too worried, though. All I needed was to find something to bond over with her, and we'd be good. But first we needed to spend more quality time together. Starting this weekend, I hoped.

The weather had taken a turn toward the less-than-stifling over the past couple of days, so I pulled a striped cardigan from the bottom of a drawer and held it up, surveying myself in the mirror.

“That one's cute,” Caitlyn spoke up. “But what about that hot-pink V-neck you got last year? That one really looks good on you.”

I'd almost forgotten she was still in the room.
“Hot-pink V-neck?” I echoed. “Oh, right, I can't believe that one slipped my mind.”

I dug into the drawer again. Aha, there it was. I'd bought the pink sweater at an end-of-season sale at the Alamo Quarry Market last spring, which meant I'd only had a chance to wear it once or twice. But Cait was right—I looked great in it.

I smiled at my sister in the mirror. “Thanks for the tip.”

“Cool.” She smiled back.

As I slipped on the sweater over a white T, I thought about Cait. Sure, she could be a pain sometimes with all the happy-shiny-bright-side stuff. But she was still my sister. Why should she get stuck in Nerd Central while I lived it up with the cool kids? Maybe once I was more firmly established in the popular crowd, I could start working her in, too.

Especially if she got over wanting to talk about our visions all the time.

Now that the visions had gotten me what I wanted, I was ready for them to end. Or at least
make sure they stayed out of my way.

WHEN I GOT to school, I stopped by my locker before heading to Megan's. The halls were crowded, and after dodging around a cluster of giggling seventh graders, I finally spotted her. She was leaning against the locker with Lavender, whispering and shooting looks at Gabe Campbell, who was swearing as he tried to wrestle open his locker nearby.

My eyes widened as soon as I got close. Lavender looked up and saw me, too, and her jaw dropped.

“Are you kidding me?” she exclaimed.

She was wearing my sweater! Okay, it wasn't
exactly
the same—hers was a crewneck with a little row of rhinestones around the collar. But it was pretty much the identical shade of hot pink.

Gabe finally managed to yank open his locker. He looked around defiantly, as if daring anyone to laugh or say anything. Then his gaze settled on me and Lavender.

“Whoa!” he blurted out with a laugh. “Check it out—I guess Lavender caught some of the twins' crazy after all. Is that the new uniform for school losers?”

His loud, snorting laughter attracted attention from other kids, including Biff and Brent, who were horsing around nearby. The two jocks came closer.

“Hey, it's the Pink Ladies!” Brent said. “Can I join if I wear my pink sweater?”

“Aw, not fair,” Biff joked. “Pink's totally not my color, dude!”

Lavender's poisonous glare settled on me. “You are
so
not wearing that today,” she said icily. “Seriously.”

“Whatever.” I peeled off the V-neck quickly and shoved it into my bag. “It's way too hot for wool anyway.”

So not true. My T-shirt was thin, and goose bumps were already rising on my arms. But I wasn't about to let that show.

Megan was glancing from me to Lavender with an uncertain smile. “Great minds think alike, right, girls?” she said.

Lavender already looked less annoyed now that my sweater was out of sight. “Yeah, well, some of us aren't interested in being a twin.” She shot me an
insincere smile. “No offense.”

“It's okay.” I glanced around, trying to gauge exactly how many people had witnessed our embarrassing moment. Luckily the B Boys had pretty short attention spans. But Gabe was still watching me, his face weirdly attentive. What was that about?

Then I saw that someone else was watching me, too. A little farther down the hall, I saw my sister lurking in a classroom doorway, looking my way with a slight grin on her face.

What was she doing there? Suddenly I had my suspicions. . . .

“CASSIE? HEY, EARTH to Cassie! What do you think—is it me?”

I realized I'd been spacing out, staring out the boutique window. Meanwhile Megan, Lavender, and Emily were trying on sunglasses and scarves and stuff.

Lavender watched me over a pair of rhinestone cat's-eye glasses. “Are you okay, Cassie? You act like you don't even want to be here.”

Her tone was vaguely snotty. Ever since that morning's sweater incident, she'd been acting icier than ever toward me. Thanks, Caitlyn.

Because by now I was pretty sure my sister was behind the whole thing. She'd cajoled me into wearing that pink sweater—because she
knew
Lavender would be wearing one the same exact color today. How had she managed to touch Lavender long enough to have a vision? Cait seemed to be out to get me, and all because of the whole Liam thing.

I'd been on edge all day, waiting to see if she would pull anything else. Everyone knew Cait was a much slower burn than I was. But when she was pushed to her limit? Watch out.

I grabbed a pair of bright-green bug-eye glasses, forcing a grin. “How about these?” I put them on and struck a pose. “Are they me?”

Megan laughed. “Definitely. But only if you wear this, too.” She jammed a hideous plaid hat on my head.

“No way.” I pulled off the hat and tossed it aside, grabbing another one. “This is way better.”

Lavender's eyes lit up. “Oh, look at that!” she exclaimed, her snippiness disappearing. “It's got little Scotties on it!”

I glanced at the hat. Sure enough, it was embroidered with a trio of tiny terriers. “Yeah, cute,” I said. “Do you have a dog, Lavender?”

“Lav would have, like, a hundred dogs if she could,” Emily said with a giggle. “But her parents only let her have one.”

“His name's Amigo—I got him at the county shelter. He's the best.” Then Lavender actually smiled at me. A miracle! But I knew I might have to rely on more than old-fashioned bonding.

“Cool,” I said. “Want to try it on?” Deciding to take advantage of her better mood, I placed the Scottie hat on her head, brushing my thumb against her forehead as I adjusted it. Would that be enough to trigger a vision?

“Watch it,” she said, her tone much sharper. “You practically poked me in the eye!”

“Sorry.” I pulled my hand back quickly. This wasn't going to be easy.

Downtown Aura wasn't exactly a world-class shopping destination, but we made the best of it, fully exploring the three boutiques and handful of other stores. I even found out that Lavender's family owned the town's old-fashioned general store—which meant Lavender and her friends got free sodas from the cooler. Nice!

By the time I said good-bye to the others and headed for home, I'd almost managed to forget about Cait's revenge mission. But as I strolled through what passed for downtown Aura, my mind wandered back to what had happened. Now that I seemed to be stuck here, I had to make this town work for me. What if my sister messed up my plans? I had to deal with her somehow. . . .

But I pushed the thought out of my mind as I noticed someone hurrying along the sidewalk ahead of me. Someone familiar.

It was Gabe. He was walking fast, a small paper bag clutched in one hand. He hadn't seen me, which was good—the guy seemed to be a serious psycho.

Which made me think about that weird thing
he'd said about Mom's job and the rest of it. What was that all about? Was there a way to find out? Come to think of it, Gabe looked a little suspicious rushing down the street clutching that bag. . . .

I couldn't resist. Feeling a little too Nancy Drew for comfort but unable to fight my curiosity, I followed him.

I stayed about half a block behind Gabe as he walked around the corner and down the next street. When he turned again, I recognized the block we were on—it was the one where the police precinct was located. The rest of the block was mostly warehouses, small office buildings, and an empty lot, so there weren't many people around.

Weird,
I thought.
If his uncle doesn't work there anymore, why's Gabe going to the cop shop?

Or maybe he wasn't. As he neared the low-slung brick building, Gabe suddenly ducked into the narrow alley running beside it.

Uh-oh. Had he spotted me following him? I hid behind a shrub across the street, feeling kind of stupid. But I definitely didn't want some kind
of awkward confrontation with him right outside Mom's workplace.

I peered out of my hiding place just in time to see Gabe emerge again, only this time he wasn't alone. The man with him appeared to be around Mom's age; the seams of his blue shirt strained across his beefy shoulders, and he was wearing cowboy boots almost like Gabe's.

The two of them glanced around, and I shrank back so they wouldn't see me. A second later I looked out just in time to see Gabe hand over what looked like a small, lumpy gray brick. I had no idea what it was, but Gabe and Mr. Blue Shirt both seemed pretty happy about it. The man tucked the item into a canvas bag he was holding, then wiped his hand on his jeans and clapped Gabe on the back, both of them grinning and looking pretty pleased with themselves.

After that Gabe hurried off, disappearing around the corner. I didn't dare follow him with the other guy still standing there, so I stayed put. Finally the guy started to walk away, and I realized I needed
to get moving, too. Mom was supposed to get out of work right around—well, now, actually. Just then she emerged from the precinct, laughing and calling something over her shoulder to whoever was just inside.

The man in the blue shirt heard her, too. He stopped short, then turned and took a few steps in her direction.

“You're sounding awfully cheerful, Officer Waters,” he said loudly. “'Specially for someone who stole another man's job.”

I froze. Uh-oh . . .

Mom looked confused for a second. Then her expression hardened into one of wary disdain.

“Charles Campbell, I presume?” she said icily.

“The one and only.” Charles Campbell—Gabe's uncle Chuck!—hooked two fingers into his belt and swaggered another couple of steps forward. “You made a big mistake coming to this town, lady. We don't need outsiders here telling us what to do; you hear me?”

Mom looked annoyed now. “That's enough,” she said. “I have things to do.”

But Uncle Chuck stepped sideways, blocking her path as she tried to go around him. “Listen, Waters,” he sneered. “I'm a nice guy, okay? All you gotta do is pack your things and hightail it back to the city, and I'll forget I ever heard of you and your family. Am I making myself clear?”

Was he threatening her—us? All Gabe's nasty comments flashed through my mind as I glanced at the precinct door, hoping another officer would come out. This guy seemed kind of unhinged. Mom needed help!

But the door stayed shut. Okay, if the cops weren't going to provide backup, I guessed it was up to me. At least I could scream pretty loudly if something happened. . . .

“Mom!” I blurted out, jumping into view from my hiding place. “I was in the neighborhood, so I figured I'd come walk you home.”

Mom looked startled. “Cassie!” she said. “Hello.”

“Hi.” Not looking at Uncle Chuck, I slipped my hand into Mom's and squeezed, wanting her to know I had her back.

But as soon as I touched her, it happened again—my vision went fuzzy, and the buzzing filled my head, making me dizzy.

A second Mom appeared over the real one, but this Mom wasn't standing on the sidewalk next to me. She was inside the police station—with several uniformed officers in the background. The place looked dingy and kind of cramped, with a couple of small windows showing an angry, stormy-looking sky outside.

I stayed focused on Mom. She looked very upset as she grabbed things out of a desk drawer and tossed them into a cardboard box while an older man with a mustache glowered over her. Then I caught sight of his badge. It read, “Aura Police Chief.”

I gasped and pulled away, and the vision was gone.

So was Uncle Chuck. In the time I'd been spaced out, he'd stalked away and was halfway down the
block. I took a deep breath, hoping that Mom hadn't noticed me getting all quiet and weird on her.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“I'm fine.” She glared after Uncle Chuck, then glanced at me. “Come on, Cassie. Let's get home.”

WHEN I GOT home from school, nobody was there. I went into my bedroom and opened my computer. I'd been checking my email every chance I got, but there was still no response from that message board.

I decided to check the site again. I'd posted that message pretty quickly the other day. Maybe it hadn't gone through. Or maybe the email alert wasn't working right.

It was easy to find the parapsychology message board again. But when I started scanning the thread
titles, the one I was looking for was nowhere on the first page. Strange. It had only been three days. But some message boards were pretty busy; maybe the thread had fallen out of sight, and that was why nobody was responding.

“Time to bump it,” I murmured, clicking the arrow to go to the second page.

Once again I scanned the titles. Nothing. Checking the dates on some of the latest entries, I saw that they'd been posted last weekend.

With a frown, I clicked back to page one. The last date there was Monday afternoon. My thread should still be on the page. Had someone changed the title or something?

I read through the thread titles more carefully, trying to figure out if any of them might be the one I was looking for. This time I noticed a thread about three-quarters of the way down, titled simply “CLOSED.”

I clicked to open it. My eyes widened when I recognized the name of the original poster from the “Real Psychics in the UK” thread. But the original
post below the name was gone, replaced with a single, gray, italicized word:
deleted
. All of the posts that had followed the initial one, including mine, had disappeared.

I sat back and stared at the screen, my mind spinning. What did this mean? Why had the thread been closed and all the text deleted? It didn't make sense. Many of the other threads involved much crazier topics than this one. . . .

Just then I heard a clatter in the hall and clicked off the site. “Oh, good, you're home,” Mom said as she poked her head into my bedroom. “Dinner in half an hour, okay?”

Cassie was right behind her. Her face was grim, and she didn't look at me as she entered the room. Gulp.

My satisfaction from that morning's sweater prank had worn off a little. I mean, Cassie totally deserved it after what she'd done to Liam. But I hated fighting with her—especially now, when all I wanted was for us to work together to figure out the vision thing once and for all.

It had been total chance that I'd seen Lavender wearing that hot-pink sweater at all. She'd turned up in the background of a vision I'd had in social studies the day before when Ms. Xavier rested her hand on my shoulder. It had been hard to miss that hot pink—or the big, loopy date written on the whiteboard. I'd barely even paid attention to what Ms. X herself was doing in the vision; she was smiling as the school secretary handed her a note.

“Come set the table in a few minutes, okay, girls?” Mom said, breaking me out of my thoughts. She glanced at the window. “Why don't you crack a window? It's stifling in here.”

I climbed to my feet and headed for the window. “Are you sure we should open it?” Cassie said to Mom. “It's freezing out today. Definitely sweater weather.”

She didn't so much as glance at me. But I winced at the extra emphasis she put on the word
sweater
.

“Up to you,” Mom said. “Don't forget about setting the table.”

As soon as she'd disappeared, Cassie turned to
face me. “Listen, Cait,” she said. “We need to talk.”

I braced myself—now there was no escape.

“You shouldn't have done that to Liam,” I blurted out. “He never—”

“Forget it,” she said sharply. “I'm sorry about it, really, and I'll try to make it up to him later, okay? But that's not important right now. I had another vision. And this one's about Mom.”

“Huh?” That definitely wasn't what I'd been expecting her to say. “What did you see?”

“Something bad, I think.” She started pacing, though our little bedroom only allowed about five steps before she had to turn around and go the other way. “It looked like she was at work, only she was really upset. I—I think she was packing up her desk. Like she'd been, you know, fired.”

“What? Are you sure?”

“Pretty sure.” She stopped pacing and sat down heavily on the edge of her bed, staring at me. “So what are we going to do?”

“Do?” I echoed. “Wait. Mom getting fired—isn't that what you
want
to happen? Without that job
we'd have no reason to stay in Aura.”

For a second my mind was filled with what that might mean. With nothing to keep us in Aura, Mom would probably move us back to San Antonio. We could return to our old school, our old friends, our old life. I'd been so busy trying to make the best of this move, support Mom, try to convince Cass that it wasn't the end of the world. All this time I hadn't allowed myself to think about anything else. But what if we could go home?

“I don't know,” Cassie said, sounding uncertain. “I mean, I
thought
that was what I wanted. But Mom looked so unhappy in the vision—and I don't want
that
, you know?”

I pulled one leg up onto the edge of the bed, resting my chin on my knee. “She does seem to really love being a cop.”

“She seems to like this crazy town, too, for some reason,” Cass agreed.

I shot her a sidelong look. “And I kind of do, too,” I said softly. “I mean, it's different from San Antonio—”

Cass snorted. “No kidding!”

“But it's not all bad, right?” I said. “The people are mostly nice. We both have friends now, and the teachers seem decent, you know? I mean, I think it's actually starting to feel like home.”

“I might not go that far. But I guess this strange little place does have its good points.” Cassie stood and starting pacing again. “I'm not saying I wouldn't rather be in San Antonio. But I don't want to move back if it means Mom has to give up her dreams.”

I smiled at her. Maybe my sister and I still had a few things in common after all. “So what do we do?”

She stopped and looked at me. “Duh,” she said. “We have to change the future. You said you think we can, right?”

“I said we
might
be able to,” I corrected. “I mean, we just haven't tried it yet.” I smiled at her, glad that we were talking again. Then my smile faded slightly. “So what do we do?”

“I don't know,” she said. “But listen—I didn't tell you the rest of what happened. . . .”

By the time she finished her story about seeing Gabe and Uncle Chuck, my heart was thumping
double time. “No way!” I blurted out, a little overwhelmed. “That sounds just like my vision!”

“Huh?”

“Remember when I tried to tell you about my latest vision earlier?” I said. “It was pretty much
exactly
what you just described.”

I filled her in on the vision I'd had about Gabe and the unknown man—who apparently was his uncle Chuck. Cass listened, tilting her head to one side like she always did when she was super focused.

“Maybe the visions are connected,” she said. “Why else would they meet up by the police station?”

Now that she'd said it, I suddenly felt uneasy, though I wasn't totally sure why. “I don't know,” I said, sitting up straighter on the bed. “Why would it necessarily have anything to do with Mom, though? She wasn't even in my vision.”

“Right. So why did Gabe and his uncle look so happy, unless they were out to cause trouble?”

“I don't know.” I really, really didn't like the thought that Gabe and his uncle might be after
Mom for real. Couldn't there be another, less scary explanation for all this? “Wait! I just thought of something. What if what you saw wasn't really what you thought you saw?”

“What are you talking about?” Cassie said.

“Well, I never imagined that the vision I had about Megan would turn out to be something
good
, you know? For all we know, your vision about Mom could've been totally innocent. Like, maybe she was packing up her desk because they decided to give her a promotion and move her into her own office or something.”

“Oh, I get it. Yeah.” Cass looked thoughtful—and a little hopeful. “I mean, Mom looked pretty upset to me. But when I saw me and Brayden holding hands, I never thought
that
would end up the way it did either.”

“So what if we're all worried for nothing?” I said. “Our two visions might have nothing to do with each other—or with anything bad.”

“And what if we aren't?” she countered. “I mean, how often do the visions work that way?”

“I don't know.” I leaned back on my bed, running through all my past visions in my head. “I never found out how most of them turned out. Like, that time I had the flu, but Mom was smiling. It could've been anything. Then there was the one at the dentist—all I know is that the hygienist was laughing, but I have no idea why.” I ticked off each vision on my fingers. “The one with you and the test, well that wound up exactly as I saw it, since you aced it. And there was the one about Ms. Xavier yesterday, but it only showed her receiving a note in class, looking happy about it. And then it actually happened today, but I don't know what the note said.”

Cassie leaned against the dresser, gazing at herself in the mirror. “Mine were mostly the same way: kind of cryptic and random. Like the food court guy at the mall looking scared, and the vision of Mom looking upset, and some girl at school crying—” Cutting herself off, she turned to face me, frowning. “Hey, I just realized something. All my visions show bad stuff: people that are sad, or worried, or poor Brayden breaking his leg.”

“Really?” I thought about it. “Come to think of it, all mine so far have shown people looking happy or laughing. Even the one of Megan, which turned out to be positive, too, though it didn't look like it at first. What a crazy coincidence!”

“Or is it? What if that's the way it works? I see all the bad stuff, and you see only good stuff?”

“It's probably not like that,” I said hurriedly. “I mean, how weird would that be?”

“Not weird. Just typical.” She glared at me as if it was my fault. “I have to deal with the messy stuff, and you get to be Miss Sunshine all the time? How fair is that?”

“Quit it, Cass,” I said. “Don't be so negative.”

“Why not?” she snapped. “It sounds like that's what's supposed to happen.”

This was veering offtrack fast. “Can we focus on this thing with Mom?” I said. As much as I was trying to stay optimistic, I couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong—and that it might have to do
with Gabe. “It's obvious now that Gabe isn't the only one who thinks Mom stole his uncle's job. What if he and Uncle Chuck are trying to get Mom fired?”

Cassie was silent for a moment. “I guess it's possible,” she said at last. “Anyway, it's our only clue so far. Maybe we should check him out—Gabe, I mean.”

“Okay. But we won't see him until school on Monday.”

“Or maybe tomorrow,” Cass put in. “He'll probably be at the football game. We can try to question him there, maybe figure out what he and Uncle Chuck are up to.”

I didn't like the thought of waiting. Not with something so important at stake. “The game's still a whole day away,” I reminded her. “What if Mom gets fired
today
?”

Cassie looked alarmed, and I began to panic. Then she glanced at the window and shook her head. “She won't. What would they do? Call her back to work to fire her? And besides, the sky outside was super stormy in my vision,” she said, looking suddenly relieved.

I followed her gaze. It was a bright evening, still sunny without a cloud in the sky. “Are you sure?” I asked, still worried.

“Positive. We still have time.”

“Good.” I met her eyes and saw my own anxiety mirrored in her identical big browns. “Now all we need is to figure out what to do. And soon.”