T*Witches: Building a Mystery (4 page)

The dozen or so kids who showed up for orientation were sitting at the front of the auditorium when Alex and Madison entered. Cade Richman was sitting alone at the back.

Alex didn't notice him right away. She was halfway down the aisle, feeling overwhelmed by Madison's endless chatter.

Suddenly, a waft of soap and leather drifted toward her, making her almost dizzy with delight. She tried to pick up Cade's thoughts, but all she could hear was Madison rattling on.

"So I was, like, really terrified. I thought, Omigosh, this can't be happening. On my very first day at school. First day? Excuse me, first hour! And I totally never saw that toadhead before in my life. So I was like, omigosh, I'm gonna, like, totally die. Of embarrassment, I mean. And then I saw you guys. So I said, like, those girls. They're not gonna let—"

With Madison chirping nonstop at her side, Alex looked over her shoulder at Cade.

He gave her a huge smile, nothing held back.

"Madison," she said. "Save me a seat, okay? I'll catch up with you in a minute."

Alex started back up the aisle toward Cade. Madison followed, her gum-soled shoes squeaking on the wooden floor. "I mean, I just looked at you guys and I knew you wouldn't let anything bad happen to me. And omigosh, I was sooo right, right?"

"Hey," Cade said, standing slowly. "I figured if I sat back here I'd see you coming in."

Alex opened her mouth, but it was Madison's high-pitched voice that shrilled, "Oh, hi! You're the one who gave me back my wallet. I'm Madison Knudnick. The
K
is silent." She extended her hand—her small paw, Alex couldn't help thinking—and Cade, grinning good-naturedly, shook it.

Madison didn't take a breath or skip a beat. "Wow, I was so hoping I'd see you again. I mean, omigosh, I just wanted to say thanks, you know. But by the time I pulled myself together you were gone—"

"Good morning. Good morning, people, and welcome!" a grating voice called out. It belonged to a heavy-set man in a rumpled khaki suit who had stepped out onto the stage. "You there, with the long hair, boy or girl, whatever you are, face front, please." The man's nylon shirt was too tight; it pulled across his pot-belly. His jacket fairly rattled with pens, which explained the ink stain on his pocket. "All right, let's sit down and be quiet, everyone."

Cade moved in and Alex took the seat next to him. Madison lost no time shooing them over, then plunking down into the aisle seat on the other side of Alex.

"Good morning, people. Like you, I'm new to Marble Bay High. My name is Mr. Shnorer, and some of you lucky tenth graders will get to know me better in English—"

"Guess who?" Alex whispered to Cade, showing him her class schedule.

"I've got English with someone named Woolsey," he responded softly.

"So does Cam, I think—" she said, with a quick stab of envy.

"Omigosh," Madison burst out in her screechy squeal. "Me, too. Ms. Woolsey. Yuck. I was like, so hoping we'd be in the same classes, Alex. I know how much it would mean to you. Getting to know me and all. Oh, wow, you must be really bummed!"

"Oh, wow, yeah. To the max." Trying to keep a straight face, Alex glanced at Cade. They had to quickly turn away from each other to keep from laughing aloud.

"Private conversation?" Mr. Shnorer called out, smiling coldly at them. He'd taken out one of his pens and was impatiently tapping it against his palm.

Alex shrunk down in her seat. Madison jumped up. "We were just saying how cool it is that my friend Alex is in your class."

"Alex? Alex who?"

"Fielding," Alex mumbled.

"Excuse me?" Mr. Shnorer said, exaggeratedly cupping a hand to his ear. "A little while ago I could hear every word you said. Don't be shy now."

Most of the kids down front had turned to stare at her. A few sniggered nervously.

"Fielding," Madison piped up.

"Fielding." The English teacher narrowed his eyes, focusing on Alex as if he was memorizing her face. "I'm sure we're all delighted to meet you, Alex Fielding. And now, with Miss Fielding's permission, of course, I'd like to continue telling those who care to listen a few things about Marble Bay High School that may make their first term here—and mine—more enjoyable."

Madison sat at last. "Wow, what an old grouch," she said too loudly.

Alex scooched farther down in her seat. Her only comfort was that she was sitting next to Cade. As the orientation droned on, she inhaled again his sweet soapy scent, spiced with the salty tang of leather. How could she have thought he had some weird secret? He seemed so open to her now.

Mr. Shnorer might just as well have been named Snore-er, she thought. His boring voice and Cade's nearness lulled her almost to sleep. In the stuffy auditorium, she closed her eyes for a moment.

And heard:

A terrible screech of tires. Two voices, both female, one screaming in horror; the other gasping, "No!" Then, worst of all, a sickening thud.

To steady herself, to hold on to something solid, Alex grabbed for the wooden armrests of her seat. What her hands found instead were Cade's arm and Madison's—one of which sent a shock through her, an electric bristle of energy. The same sharp tingling she'd felt the first time she'd brushed Doc's sleeve. And his hand when he was the old policeman Karsh. And the uniform of his beautiful blond partner, Officer Ileana.

Alex's eyes flew open. Whose arm had given her the shock—Cade's or Madison's? Whose sleeve or hand had she accidentally touched?

She looked down at the armrests on either side of her. They were empty now. Both Cade and Madison were unenthusiastically clapping at something Mr. Shnorer had said.

That afternoon, Alex sat in class, listening again to the chunky English teacher's monotonous voice.

Dylan, who was sitting directly behind her, passed her a note.
You weren't kidding about this guy,
it said.
What a snore.

Although Dyl was ten months younger than Camryn, Emily had wanted her children to start school together. Which was why Cam's baby brother was in the tenth grade. Hooray for Emily, Alex thought, grateful to have a friendly face in English, even if the friendly face was wearing blue streaks in his blond hair and practically everyone in class had something to say or whisper about that. Including Mr. Shnorer, of course, who'd welcomed Dylan by asking if he and "Miss Fielding" went to the same hairdresser.

The scruffy teacher was tapping one of his pens again, this time against his cheek—which irritated Alex almost as much as the fact that he wasn't actually teaching anything. He was lazily delivering a classroom version of his orientation speech. It was a double drag since, one, Alex had already suffered through the boring lecture once and, two, English was one of her favorite subjects, a class she ordinarily looked forward to.

So what do you think about Cade?
she scribbled on Dylan's note and passed it back to him.

He leaned forward and whispered, "Who's Cade?"

Alex turned and rolled her eyes at him. "The guy in the leather jacket. From this morning?"

"The lock-picker?" Dylan asked.

Alex sighed. "The what? Speak English much?"

"You're talking about the dude who offered to crack your combination lock, right?"

"Forget it," Alex snapped, turning back to the front.

A pen whizzed over her head and hit the back wall behind Dylan. "Oh, my," Mr. Shnorer said, "some of these pens are so slippery."

Alex couldn't believe it. The man had thrown something at them! A few kids chuckled along with the teacher; most gasped or glared at him.

"Want to share your conversation with the class, Alex?" He drew another pen from his pocket and began beating his palm with it.

Steaming, she shook her head.

"Stand, please," Mr. Shnorer ordered. "And do tell us what was more important than what I was saying."

Alex stood very slowly. "Almost anything," she said.

The percentage shifted. This time most of the class chuckled and only a few gasped. Unfortunately, Mr. Shnorer was one of the gaspers.

"Perhaps you and..." He checked his attendance sheet. "Dylan. Dylan Barnes... would like to finish your conversation outside?"

"Love to," Alex answered.

"You bet!" Dylan stood, too.

"All right, then." The teacher quickly pulled a sheet of paper from his desk drawer and began scrawling something on it. "Here's a pass to the principal's office. I'm sure Mrs. Hammond will give you the privacy you need. Possibly for several hours."

"We're toast," Dylan whispered. "Detention."

"Yeah, and it's only day one," Alex pointed out. "This is one advanced school. I don't usually do face time with the authorities until at least the second day of the term." She snatched the slip from Mr. Shnorer's hand, wishing she had Cam's eyeballing power. She'd have melted every pen in the goonball's pocket and fried his scuzzy see-through shirt.

Of course, there were a few tricks she could pull on her own. But she wasn't in this alone, Alex reminded herself. There was Dylan to consider—and, from the looks of it, he was not the happy puppy.

Olivia Hammond was Mr. Shnorer's exact opposite. She was handsomely fit, neat as a pin, with big, light brown eyes that reminded Alex of her mother's eyes and a stylish blunt haircut that would have looked buff on Sara. The principal accepted the note Alex handed her and asked Dylan and Alex to sit. The armchairs she indicated were comfortable and upholstered in somewhat shabby brown leather.

While Alex sat at the edge of her seat, eyes following the pacing principal, Dylan leaned back, the picture of resigned bum-osity.

Insolent?
Mrs. Hammond read the note to herself
. Insolent, inattentive, insubordinate—

"—And in trouble," Alex couldn't help adding.

"Excuse me?" The principal glanced up, startled.

"Um, I said, 'Are we in trouble?'" Alex ad-libbed.

"Yeah, like, are we going to get detention?" Dylan wanted to know.

"Well..." Mrs. Hammond's surprised look changed to one of amusement. "It's a little early in the term for that, Dylan. I'm not sure we have our detention staff set up yet. Alexandra, I know that you're new to Marble Bay, and I'm sure you have a lot to contribute." She set down the note and leaned back against her desk. "Why don't you tell me what happened."

Dylan did most of the talking. Although the principal's face was set in an understanding smile, when he got to the part about Mr. Shnorer throwing a pen, Alex heard Mrs. Hammond exclaim,
Oh, no. Please tell me it was an accident.
What she said was: "I see. Well, Mr. Shnorer is new to our school as well. Why don't we chalk up today's incident as first day jitters all around?"

Dylan's bliss was brief.

"But I will have to send a note home with you and I'll need your parents' signature—"

"They're not my parents," Alex said automatically.

"So Mrs. Barnes explained," Olivia Hammond said kindly. "But it's my understanding that Mr. Barnes has set the wheels in motion for them to become your legal guardians—"

There was a brusque knock at the principal's door and, a second later, the school clerk appeared, saying in a flustered voice, "Mrs. Hammond, the police are here. They have questions about one of our students."

"Did you see them?" Cam asked after school.

"Who, the cops? Yeah," Dylan responded glumly. We had front-row seats."

Alex pinched his arm.

"Yeow," Dyl hollered. "I didn't tell her we were in Hammond's office. Why'd you do that?"

"To keep you from blabbing your guts out, but clearly my plan backfired."

"You know who they reminded me of?" Caught up in her own thoughts, Cam continued. "They reminded me of Officer Karsh and—"

"Ileana," Alex said. "What about them?"

"Well, it got me thinking again—" Cam said, unlocking her bicycle.

"Always dangerous."

"You're going straight home, right?" Dylan reminded Alex.

"I said I'd be there." Pulling her bike, formerly his bike, out of the rack, she rolled her eyes. "It was totally my fault, okay? I'll tell Emily and Dave that."

"That's not what I meant." He scowled. "Oh, forget you. I'm outta here."

"I'll be there, Dylan. I'm going right to the house. Wait for me," Alex called after him, hoping he heard her over the whoosh of his skateboard. "Dyl, don't say anything until I get there."

Well, that had gotten Cam's attention. She'd put her trip down memory lane on pause and was staring at Alex, waiting for an explanation of what was up between her and Dylan.

"Don't even ask," Alex advised. "Anyway, the cops who popped into Hammond's office today looked nothing like the dream team who showed up the night we cut Marleigh loose."

"I know. I only said they reminded me of the other ones. And because I was thinking of that, I remembered the big, bearded buy with the heavy boots, who Officer Ileana or waitress Ileana—"

"Or Ileana Barbie?" Alex teased.

"—warned us about." Cam ignored the interruption. "Anyway, monster man or whatever his real name is—"

"Thantos," Alex told her. "Weird name, right? I think I know what it means, but I'm going to check it out with Mrs. Bass."

Mrs. Bass was the Crow Creek librarian. She'd helped Alex send an e-mail to Cam on the library's computer. And now she'd set up e-mail addresses for Evan and Lucinda, Alex's best buds in Montana, so that they could keep in touch with her.

Doris Bass, Alex had told Cam, had been a friend of her mother's. She and Sara had gone to grade school together.

"Right. Thantos," Cam said now. "Alex, he said he knew our real mom, knew where she was, and that only he could take us to her—"

Alex's face turned stony. "I already know where
my
mom is," she cut Cam off. "She's dead. She died of lung cancer and I couldn't do anything to help her."

She remembered the dream she'd had the night after they'd rescued Marleigh. Doc, or Officer Karsh, came to Alex in that dream. He told her there was nothing she could have done to save her mom. It was just Sara's time, he'd said.

She guessed it had helped to believe that for a while. Just as it had helped to pretend that she was on vacation, taking a break from Crow Creek, and that when she went home Sara would still be there, alive, waiting. Only reality kept rearing its ugly head.

Reality. Definition: Sara, the only mother Alex had ever known, the only one she'd ever wanted, was gone for good.

"You want to know why?" Alex asked Cam, without looking at her. Her voice broke unexpectedly. She cleared her throat, embarrassed, almost angry. "She died because we were broke. Big-time. Massively. Without dollar one. We were... I mean, my moms was...
literally
dead broke."

"Als, I'm sorry," Cam began.

But Alex climbed on the dirt bike and started peddling toward the house, as she'd promised him she would.

On her sleek red racer, Cam rode after her. "Alex, wait up. I'm sorry."

"Know why we were broke?" Alex called over her shoulder, not caring that other kids were leaving school, moving in herds, milling at the oh-so-quaint stone benches of Money Bags High, which they happened to be biking past. "Because my loser dad left us with nothing but his dumb debts!"

The sight of Kristen and Bree in their designer duds, waiting at the curb for Bree's housekeeper to pick them up, just egged Alex on. "And like a minute after my so-called father was smoke, a hundred creeps crawled out of the woodwork demanding that my
moms
come up with the money he supposedly scammed off them," she went on, loud enough for the Galleria girls to hear.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw, with sick satisfaction, their shocked exchange of looks. "End of convo, Cam. You want to find your real mother, you go, Sherlock. But Sara Fielding was mine."

Dylan was in the driveway, fiddling with the trucks on his skateboard, when first Alex, then Cam rode up. "Okay, let's do this thing," Alex grumbled, dropping the dirt bike against the garage wall.

"What's going on?" Cam asked, dismounting. "I'm going to find out anyway. Maybe I can help—"

"We got sent to Hammond's office," Dylan told her, following Alex into the house.

Cam shook her head and took off after them. "For what?"

"For mouthing off at this barrel-bellied Barney who gets his kicks embarrassing kids and hurling pens—"

"Shnorer," Alex reported.

"The new English Lit guy?" Cam asked, aghast.

"Don't lose your lunch over it," Alex advised. "I didn't do anything... you know,
serious
to him. The man is beyond snarky. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if he was—"

"Not even!" Cam gasped, knowing what Alex was thinking. "The messenger?"

"Messenger? I wish," Dylan said, imagining Shnorer on a bike, with a big old canvas sack, filled with packages and oversize envelopes, slung across his chest. "He's a teacher. And Mom is going to bust a gut—"

"Oh, really?" Emily glanced over her shoulder as they entered the kitchen. She was at her desk, shuffling through fabric swatches, a blueprint of her client's living room spread out before her. Smiling, she swiveled to face them. "What am I going to bust a gut about?

Alex and Cam looked at each other.
Don't make a joke about it,
Cam silently begged.
Thanks for the tip
, Alex responded sarcastically, then crossed the floor and handed Emily Mrs. Hammond's note. "Houston, we have a problem," she quipped. Behind her she could hear Cam groaning.

"Mom, listen—" Dylan began.

Emily held up her hand to hush him while she read. When she looked up, her smile was gone, and so was most of the color in her face. "If you're going to start giving me excuses for this, don't bother," she warned Dylan.

"That's not what I was going to do." He ran a hand through his choppy two-tone 'do—which Alex wished he hadn't, since it only called attention to his last offense, the blue-streak caper, which Emily was sure Alex had talked him into. "I was going to say he deserved it. The guy's a real—"

"Don't say it!" his mother commanded. "And you, Alexandra..." Emily's blue eyes went cold. She stood abruptly and shook Mrs. Hammond's letter at Alex. "I expected more of you. Although I don't know why. I just thought you'd appreciate—" She stopped brusquely and tossed the note down onto her desk. "I'll sign this slip and so will your father—"

"Right," Alex said. "Be sure to let me know when you dig him up." She turned on her heels and headed out of the room.

Cam started after her. "You stay right here," her mother commanded. "I want to talk to you. And I think your father will, too."

Dave strode into the kitchen, as if on cue.

"Whassssup?" he teased. But after taking in the glum scene, he quickly switched gears. He dropped his briefcase onto a chair and drew his Ben Franklin-style bifocals from their perch on top of his head down onto the bridge of his nose. This last gesture was a sign that he was ready for business. "Okay. What's going on?" he said with a touch of wariness.

Cam climbed the stairs in a foul mood. Her father wanted her to baby-sit Alex. "Poor Alex," he'd called her, after Emily finished reading Dylan the riot act and then stomped after him out of the kitchen. "Just keep an eye out for her, Cami," he'd said. "Poor kid, she's new here and she's been through so much—"

"Oh, like I haven't gone through anything, right?" Cam had grumbled. "Only finding out, fourteen years after the fact, that I was adopted and had an identical twin I'd never met!"

And there was plenty more she'd been through that she wasn't about to discuss with David, the make-believe dad.

Like how she knew things before they happened.

And saw things no one else could see.

And could talk to Alex without words and sometimes hear what her newfound, trouble-prone twin was thinking.

And discovered that her eyes could be fire hazards. That, like the sun, they could dazzle and blind, or pin a person with a ray of lethal light.

Oh, yeah, and how about, after a lifetime of being the only gray-eyed girl she knew, the only one with her exact, almost metallic, gold-flecked, black-rimmed gray eyes, she was suddenly running into a regular rash of gray-eyed babes: Alex, of course, and Ileana.

Cam was miffed, bummed, and so not into being the "mature" twin saddled with the job of looking after the wayward, wild girl of the West.

Like Alex cared? Look at her, Cam thought, after opening the door to their room. The whole Barnes household was stressed to the max, and there was Alexandra the Great, sitting cross-legged on her bed, scrounging through the sorry wad of junk jewelry that Doc had packed for her before bringing her to Marble Bay.

And Cam's computer was on, too. It wasn't like "Poor Alex" had been sitting around feeling rotten about messing up at school and at home. Or about taking Dylan down with her—although, Cam had to admit, her skateboarding, earring-wearing, formerly longhaired blond bro didn't need much help in that department.

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Alex said without looking up.

"Excuse me?" Cam asked coldly. "I assume you trespassed on my thoughts again. Which part of what I was thinking did you mistake for a vote of confidence?"

"My, aren't we frosty? I was referring to your brilliant insight that your brother is capable of screwing up without my leadership skills."

"Stay out," Cam said. "Just mind your own business and stay out of my mind, okay?"

"Don't I wish I could." Alex picked a faded pink box out of the trinket trash on the bed. She opened it, peered in, and then quickly snapped it shut again. "It's not my fault that I hear way more of your boring beliefs than I want to." Getting up abruptly, she took the silk-covered box with her into their bathroom and slammed the door.

Inside the old box was the necklace Doc had said belonged to her mother. Without turning on the bathroom light, Alex carefully took out the delicate necklace and carried it to the window. Sadly, lovingly, she studied the moon charm in the thin glow of the fading day.

In their bedroom, mindlessly toying with her own necklace, Cam listened raptly, wondering if she could see through the door, pierce it with her intense gaze. No, she decided, even if she could, she wouldn't. Some people had a conscience about how they used their mojo.

Instead, she wandered over to the computer to check her e-mail. What she saw on the screen was the beginning of a note from Alex to Mrs. Bass at the Crow Creek library.
Do you know what Thantos means? It reminds me of something I read in that mythology book I brought back way overdue when Mom—

The message ended there. Ended on the word
Mom
.

Without wanting or trying to, Cam knew what had happened. In the middle of e-mailing the librarian, Alex had remembered her mother—their mother... She'd probably felt the urge to hold onto something that had belonged to or been worn by Sara. Something Alex kept in that old jewelry stash—

Cam felt so locked out. She longed to know more about Sara. All she'd been able to pry from Alex so far was that their mother was strong, loving, and had brown, not gray eyes. Oh, yeah, and that she and the Crow Creek librarian had gone to school together.