Double Trouble (6 page)

I SAT IN
homeroom on Monday feeling out of sorts. The B Boys were horsing around in the back of the room, playing keepaway with Biff's math book. They were making tons of noise, and it was giving me a headache.

But I knew it wasn't really the B Boys who were bugging me. I hated fighting with Cassie. I hated it a whole lot. And I could tell she'd wanted to make up the night before.

But I hadn't been ready then. Not because her
friends had hijacked the party. Whatever, I could deal with that. Not even because she kept calling Liam and Bianca nerds. I was used to that sort of thing from her.

That scene at the mall, though? That had shaken me up. For real. When Cassie had started going at Mom, it was like she'd totally forgotten they were in public. What was she expecting to happen, anyway? Mom didn't deal well with threats or tantrums, and she could be just as stubborn as Cassie. Confronting her like that? Not only was it guaranteed not to work, but it might even make her
less
likely to tell us the truth.

We needed Mom on our side right now if we ever wanted to figure out what was happening to us, and Cassie may have ruined that for us forever.

“I got my pool party invitation!” Liam said, breaking into my thoughts. “If you need an RSVP, consider this mine—I'll be there.”

“Cool.” I forced a smile, then glanced at Bianca. As usual, she was reading a book at her desk, her dark hair falling forward to block her face from view.
“What about you, Bianca? Did you get your invite?” I knew Cassie had e-mailed the whole guest list the night before. At least she'd said she had. I was actually a little surprised that she hadn't “forgotten” to send anything to my friends.

Bianca looked up briefly. “Yes, I got it,” she said. “Thanks.”

“Good.” I waited for her to say she was coming, but she'd already gone back to her book.

“I just hope it stays nice and hot until then.” Liam leaned back in his chair and smiled. “I haven't been to Megan's pool since third grade, but it's awesome!”

I was a little surprised he'd been to Megan's pool at all. The two of them weren't exactly bosom buddies, as far as I could tell.

“Third grade?” I echoed.

He nodded so vigorously his hair flopped over his eyes. “She had the whole class over for an end-of-the-year party,” he explained. “It was supergreat!”

It was nice that he was so excited about the party. I just hoped it was as much fun as he was expecting. With Lavender in charge—or at least
trying to be—I wasn't feeling too confident about that myself.

I glanced toward Lavender's seat. She wasn't there yet, but I couldn't help noticing someone else staring at me.

Gabe. He was leaning forward in his seat a couple of rows back, his eyes trained right on me. As usual he looked unfriendly, but this time there was a twinge of something else—an expression I couldn't quite read.

With a gulp, I turned away quickly. Had he been listening? I felt a flash of guilt. He hadn't exactly been nice to me and Cassie since we'd arrived in town. Still, it couldn't be fun hearing about a party you weren't invited to, and that made me feel bad.

At least until I remembered the last time he'd eavesdropped. Was that weird expression him feeling left out because of the party—or was he thinking about what he'd overheard the other day?

I touched the key-shaped necklace, which I'd been wearing since Saturday. Bianca looked up just in time to notice.

“Hey, neat necklace,” she said. “Where'd you get it?”

“Thanks,” I said. “It's, um, a family hand-me-down.”

“I'm not surprised—it looks really old. Can I see?” She reached for the pendant.

As she touched it, her fingers brushed my skin. I froze as a strong vision hit me—of Bianca sitting in a bland beige chair, sobbing her eyes out!

I pulled back with a gasp. Luckily at that very second Liam managed to knock all his books off his desk. “Oops!” he said with a laugh.

Bianca turned to help him. As the two of them gathered up Liam's stuff, I sat there trying to get control of myself. Wow, that had been close. The vision had been so strong that there was no way it hadn't showed on my face. It was a coincidence that Bianca had been staring at the necklace instead of at me. And that Liam's clumsiness had distracted her at just the right moment.

The scene had been much brighter and clearer than any earlier visions. Even in that split second,
I'd seen people in scrubs wandering around, and a sign about visiting hours.

A hospital waiting room
, I thought. That's where she'd been—or rather, where she was going to be.

Thinking about that made me go hot and cold all over. Whatever Bianca was doing in that waiting room, it was making her cry in public—something I could hardly imagine calm, quiet Bianca doing at all. So what was going on? I'd thought I was supposed to see only
good
things, and that vision was anything but good.

Did this mean our visions were changing? I'd hardly thought about it when I'd assured Cassie that she might be seeing good things as well as bad ones. Now I realized what else that meant—that I could see bad stuff as well as good. Yikes!

But more important, what had Bianca been doing at the hospital?

I glimpsed over at her. As I did, I noticed a slight movement behind me. Glancing back, I saw that Gabe had just leaned forward again. He was watching me with a curious little gleam in his eye. I forced
a shaky smile, but he just raised an eyebrow and then turned away.

CASSIE DIDN'T WAIT
for me after school, leaving me to walk home alone. When I entered the house, she was on the sofa flipping through a magazine.

“Hi,” I said tentatively. “Is Mom home?”

“Nope,” she replied without looking up. “She's working this afternoon. She told us at breakfast.”

I nodded. Breakfast had been a brief, mostly silent meal, but now that she mentioned it, I did recall Mom going over her work schedule for the week.

“Listen, Cassie,” I said. “I'm sorry I was short with you last night. Can we stop fighting already? Please?”

She finally looked at me and shrugged. “Yeah, that would be good. I'm sorry, too. You know, for letting my friends take over the party or whatever. I promise you can help us plan it and stuff. I also promise that everyone will have a great time, including your dor—uh, your friends.” She grinned. “Even if I have to tie Lav's mouth shut to make it happen.”

I smiled with relief. She seemed clueless about
why I'd been so annoyed with her yesterday, but at least she'd apologized for the other stuff. And yesterday suddenly didn't seem so important.

“Good,” I said. “Let's both agree to stop getting mad over stupid stuff, okay? Because we really need to work together right now. On a lot of stuff.”

“Sing it, sister.” She tossed her magazine aside and stretched. “Can you believe Mom sent our package back?”

She had a point, but I didn't want to get sidetracked by another rant about Mom right now. “Wait, I have a question,” I said quickly. “What exactly did you see in that vision the other day? The one about Bianca.”

“Not much,” she said. “It was pretty short. All I saw was her rushing past the hospital sign, heading for the door.”

“And she looked upset?”

“Very.” She nodded. “Like she was totally freaked out, actually.”

“Oh.” I sank onto the sofa next to her. “Because I had a vision about Bianca and the hospital today,
too.” I described what I'd seen.

“Wow,” she said. “Obviously someone she knows is going to end up in the hospital, right?”

“Seems like it.” I bit my lip. “And it's got to be someone she cares about a lot for her to be that upset. So what are we going to do about it?”

“You mean you want to try to change it? Stop it from happening?”

“Of course!” I said. “What if it's some kind of accident or something? That's totally the kind of thing we could stop, right?”

“I guess.” She didn't sound too convinced.

“We have to try,” I told her firmly. “Especially since I'm afraid whatever it is might happen soon.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Because my vision was superstrong this time.”

Cassie tilted her head. “Wait,” she said. “It doesn't work that way, does it? I mean, my visions have been getting stronger all along, but it's been kind of gradual. At least until recently.”

“Me, too,” I agreed. “But this Bianca one was extra vivid.”

“Mine was, too.” She was chewing her lower lip now, the way she always did when she was thinking hard. “So was the one I had about Megan and the dog, though. And that was days ago already.”

“How do you know that one hasn't happened yet, though?” I said. “It just showed Megan at home playing with a dog, right? There's no reason you'd even know when something like that happened. It could have come true the same day you saw it.”

“I guess.”

“And the last vision I had before this one was the one with Mom and that man,” I went on. “It wasn't nearly as vivid as the Bianca one. And I know it's not going to happen anytime soon since I saw Christmas decorations.” I smiled, pleased with my own logic. Maybe we'd figure out this Sight thing yet!

“I guess. Only we've never noticed a difference like that before.” Cassie's eyes shifted down from my face, then suddenly went sharp and thoughtful. “Wait, were you wearing the necklace today? When you had your Bianca vision?”

“Yeah.” I touched the pendant. Then I gasped.
“Oh my gosh! Were you wearing it when you had your stronger visions, too?”

Cassie nodded. “And it came from our grandmother,” she said. “Maybe it's some kind of amulet or talisman.” She blinked. “What's the difference between those, anyway?”

“Never mind that.” I was pondering her theory. It definitely made sense—at least as much sense as any of this did. “I bet you're right. The pendant might be adding extra power to our visions or something like that.” I shuddered and pulled it over my head. “If you're right, I don't think I want to wear it. My visions are strong enough without any help.”

“Same here. We can hide it in my jewelry box—Mom never looks in there.” Cassie grabbed the necklace. “But this is good news, right? It means we might have more time than you thought to figure out how to help Bianca.”

“Yeah.” I shuddered again, flashing back to my vision. “I hope so.”

ON TUESDAY AT
lunch, I couldn't help glancing across the caf at Caitlyn's table every five seconds or so. As usual, she was sitting with Liam and Bianca. Liam and Cait were chatting, while Bianca had her face buried in a book. No wonder the girl was so skinny—she seemed to care more about reading than anything else, even eating.

Not that I blamed her. It was chicken potpie day. Totally gross.

“Cassie? What do you think?” Lavender's sharp
voice broke into my thoughts. “Are you even listening?”

I blinked at her. “Sorry, what?”

Lav looked impatient. “I said, should we try to find a band to play at your party? My uncle's a musician—he might know someone.”

“I still think a DJ is better,” minion Emily said. “That way we can request our favorite songs and stuff.”

“Both sound cool to me,” Megan put in. “Or we could just do a playlist on one of our phones or something—then we could pick exactly what we want to hear. What do you think, Cass?”

“Oh.” I shrugged. “I don't know. Isn't it going to be hard to find a band this close to the party?”

Megan and the others nodded. “DJ it is,” minion Abby said, looking happy.

“Or playlist,” minion Emily put in.

Lavender leaned across the table. “What's with you today, Cassie? It's like you're not even interested in planning your own party.” She grabbed my shoulders and shook me. “Snap out of it already!”

I didn't answer. I couldn't. Because as soon as her hand touched me, I was plunged into another vision.

Real Lavender faded away. Overlaid on top of her was a brighter version of Lavender, this one dressed in a cute polka-dotted two-piece swimsuit. There was a gorgeous pool in the background; I was pretty sure I saw a slide and a waterfall and some really nice deck chairs, though the details were a little hard to see.

Then I saw Lavender's face, which was streaked with tears. She was sobbing, collapsed against Abby, who was hugging her while Emily patted her back. Behind them, I could barely see Megan standing a few feet away. She was crying, too, standing there with her arms wrapped around herself.

Then Lavender let go of me and flopped back into her seat. I grabbed a napkin and pretended to wipe my mouth, hoping nobody had noticed me spacing out for a second.

“Funny, Cass,” Lav said, rolling her eyes. “Fine, if you want to play zombie like that, maybe I'll keep my
ideas to myself from now on.” She popped a carrot stick into her mouth, looking sulky.

“Relax, Lav,” Megan said. “Cassie was just kidding around. Right, Cass?”

“Totally.” I tried to smile and look normal, relieved that Megan had taken my vision space-out for goofing off. “I'm sorry, Lav. Your plans all sound great. I really appreciate the way you're helping make this party happen.”

“Okay.” Lavender sounded mollified, at least a little. “Then let's talk about food . . .”

They were off and running again, blabbing on about party details. I tried to pay attention, but it wasn't easy. Because now that I'd recovered from the surprise of the vision, I'd realized a couple of things.

For one, it seemed our theory was right. I wasn't wearing the necklace that day, and the vision hadn't been as supercharged as the last two I'd had. It was clear enough to see what was happening, but the background hadn't glowed with energy like the others, and the colors hadn't been quite as crazy bright.

Still, I'd been able to see enough to guess where
the vision was taking place. Megan's pool. Which meant one thing.

Whatever they're all upset about, it must happen at our party!
I thought with a chill of horror.
What if it has something to do with our visions about Bianca?

My gaze wandered across the cafeteria again. Bianca had actually torn her gaze away from her book and was looking at Caitlyn with a small smile. Was something going to happen at the pool party? Something so terrible that it made even Lavender cry?

But what? Maybe something was going to happen to someone Bianca cared about. Like one of Bianca's best friends. One of whom happened to be my sister.

Yikes. What if Cait was the reason Bianca was at the hospital? I tried to banish the thought as soon as it came. Maybe it was Liam who got hurt at the party. Bianca would be upset about that, too, right?

But no—Lavender wouldn't cry if Liam got hurt. She might be sort of sad or worried—she was human, after all. But crying as if her heart was breaking, like
I'd just seen her do in my vision? No way. Not for Liam.

Would she cry like that for Caitlyn? I studied Lav's face as she talked to the others. She'd been much friendlier to me since this party came along, but did she consider me enough of a friend to cry like that if my sister got hurt?

I didn't know, but I wasn't sure I was willing to take the chance. Maybe Mom had been right all along. Maybe it would be better if we didn't have a party this year. It was starting to feel like more trouble than it was worth.

“Hey, ladies.” Brayden's voice interrupted my churning thoughts. He'd appeared at our table without me even noticing. Which tells you how distracted I was.

“Hi, Brayden,” Lavender cooed. “What's up?”

“Not much.” He shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans and grinned at me. “Just wanted to say thanks for the party invitation, Cassie. I'll be there for sure.”

“Great,” I said, feeling my face go hot.

“Yeah, the party's going to be superfab!” Abby burbled. “Lav is picking out the music, and there's going to be tons of food and stuff.”

“Sounds fun,” Brayden said, still smiling at me.

I smiled back, suddenly not so eager to cancel after all. Besides, my friends were so excited about this. How could I back out now? No, there had to be another way . . .

“. . .
SO YOU'RE SURE
it was Megan's pool in the vision?” Caitlyn said.

I shoved a forkful of peas into my mouth. Mom was working late, and Cait and I were eating the dinner she'd left us to heat up.

“Pretty sure,” I said. “I mean, what other pool would it be? It must have been our party I saw.”

“You didn't actually see us there, though,” Cait pointed out.

“Yeah. That's part of the problem.” I speared another pea and stared at it. “I'm worried that one of us could be, you know, the victim.” My eyes widened as another thought occurred to me. “Or maybe
both
of us are going to be victims!”

A chill ran down my spine as I realized that theory made a weird kind of sense. Neither of us had appeared in any of the visions. Maybe Bianca was crying over Cait, and Lavender was crying over me.

“What could possibly happen to both of us at the same time?” Caitlyn said.

I grimaced. “Car crash, maybe?” I said. “Or the pool heater could go crazy and electrocute us. Lots of stuff could happen.”

“Ugh! Don't even say that.” Cait put down her fork, looking worried. “Maybe we should cancel. It's not worth someone getting hurt.”

“Yeah, especially me,” I joked. Then I sighed. “But we can't cancel. What would we tell everyone? We'd look like total flakes.”

“That's better than ending up in the hospital,” Cait said. She was staring into space, twirling the ends of her hair between her fingers. She always did that when she was deep in thought.

“What?” I demanded. “What are you thinking about?”

“That letter,” she said. “I know we didn't get to read much of it. But the part we did see said something about us learning to manage our powers.”

“I know. Too bad we didn't get the details.” I frowned at Mom's empty seat.

Caitlyn shrugged. “At least now we know it's possible to control this, at least somewhat, right? Plus we think that necklace strengthens the visions or whatever. Our grandmother must have known that. She probably sent it to help us.”

I was starting to see what she was getting at. “So maybe we should try to figure it out on our own?” I guessed. “We don't have much time, though. It's already Tuesday, and the party's on Saturday.”

“I know, I know. But listen, I was also thinking about what Ms. Xavier said.”

I grimaced. The social studies teacher had been bugging me every chance she got about her stupid idea for me and Cait to work together. Fat chance. It was bad enough that Cait and I had some bizarre twin-power thing going. We didn't need to do a report on it for the weirdest teacher in school.

“Things are strange enough around here without getting her involved,” I said, reaching for the salt.

“I'm not talking about getting her involved,” Cait said. “I was just thinking how she mentioned doing twin experiments—you know, to see if we could read each other's minds or whatever?”

“Twintuition,” I said with a half smile. “That's what we used to call it when we tried to guess each other's thoughts, remember?”

“I remember.” Cait smiled back. “So maybe we should give it a try. Do some experimenting, see if we can control the visions more. That'll give us a better chance of figuring out exactly what we've been seeing—and how to stop it.”

I took another bite of my food while I thought about it. “I guess it couldn't hurt to try.”

We finished eating quickly and cleared the table. Then we sat down again, facing each other.

“Now what?” I said.

“I'm not sure.” Cait grabbed both my hands. “Let's try to focus and see if that brings on a vision.”

I nodded, squeezing her hands. Closing my eyes,
I thought about Caitlyn. Pictured her face, her goofy laugh, the whole deal.

Nothing happened. After a little while, I opened my eyes.

“This isn't working,” I said. “Anyway, we've tried this before, remember? Touching someone and hoping for a vision doesn't bring on a vision. If it did, we'd be having them practically nonstop. They come totally at random and we have no say when or where or who as far as I can tell.”

“Okay.” Cait bit her lip. “But it can't hurt to experiment a little more. I mean, we really don't know how it works, exactly. Maybe we should try hugging. More touching, more vision, right?”

I rolled my eyes as she jumped to her feet. But I stood, letting her wrap her arms around me.

I hugged her back, pressing myself against her. She smelled good.

“Hey,” I said suspiciously. “Did you steal my new jasmine shampoo?”

“Cassie!” She pulled back. “We need to focus.”

I pushed her away. “What's the point? This
doesn't make sense. I mean, I've had visions about people when I barely brushed against them—like Bianca, for instance. Why would hugging make any difference?”

“I don't know.” She brushed her hair out of her eyes, looking as frustrated as I felt. “I'm just trying stuff, you know?”

Suddenly I snapped my fingers. “Duh,” I said. “I know something we can try.”

Rushing to our room, I dug the talisman out of my jewelry box and brought it back to the living room.

“Oh, right,” Caitlyn said when she saw it. “Good point.”

I grabbed her hand again, so we were both holding the pendant. It pressed against both of our palms as we stared at each other.

“Nothing's—” Cait began. Then she gasped and her eyes went unfocused.

That was all I saw clearly. Because the real Caitlyn was fading, replaced by a supervivid, Technicolor Caitlyn. She was standing in our front yard
facing a stern-looking elderly white woman with excellent posture. The woman was scowling and appeared to be yelling as Cait cowered.

The buzzing was so loud that my head felt ready to explode. With great effort, I pulled back.

The pendant fell to the floor, and the vision was gone.

“Whoa!” Cait gasped out. “I had one—did you?”

“Uh-huh.” I told her what I'd seen.

“Weird,” she said when I finished. “I saw an older woman in mine, too. Gray hair in a bun, thin and kind of tall?”

“That's the one,” I said. “She was wearing a blue suit, I think.”

“In mine, she had on a black dress,” Cait said. “She was smiling and hugging you. Did you recognize her?”

I shook my head. “Never saw her before. Who do you think she is? New teacher or neighbor or something?”

Caitlyn shrugged. “She could be anybody. It's weird we both saw her, though.”

“Yeah.” I grinned. “What if it was our grandmother?”

Cait stared at me. “Do you really think it could be? I mean, we're both probably thinking about her.”

“Nah, I was just kidding. I bet it's not her. Especially since she probably lives somewhere overseas, at least judging by all the stamps on that box she sent us.” I shrugged. “Anyway, these visions didn't seem to have anything to do with the pool party or the hospital or any of that. Let's try again and see if we can get something more useful.”

She picked up the necklace, and we tried the same thing. But this time nothing happened.

It figured. If only we'd still had that letter—maybe it would tell us what to do. Or how to reach our grandmother.

“What now?” Caitlyn finally asked with a sigh.

I stared at her, feeling tired. “I don't know. We'll just have to keep trying to figure out those visions we had. Maybe try getting more from Bianca or the others?”

“Sounds like a plan.” She smiled. “We might not
have much to go on. But at least we have each other, right?”

I rolled my eyes. “Sappy much?” I muttered.

But I couldn't help smiling back.