T*Witches: Kindred Spirits Read Free Page B

the destruction.
    “You think?” Cam wavered, reading her sister’s mind.
    “Yeah, I do,” Alex said. Ileana’s damaged home was like a reminder of the proud witch’s broken soul. What choice did she and Cam really have? They would roll up their sleeves and make it right, pick up the pieces of Ileana’s … life.
    While Alex used her telekinetic power to float Ileana’s keepsakes, knickknacks, and clothing back to their original places, Cam picked her way through the rubble, cleaning up the old-fashioned way. A gold-framed picture drew her eye. Cam stared at it and smiled.
    An astonishingly beautiful woman — so much more radiant than the woman they’d met only last week — her hair long and chestnut-colored, her eyes luminous and gray, stared back at her. The woman’s arm was wrappedprotectively around the shoulders of an exquisite blond-haired, beaming child. Miranda and Ileana.
    Cam called Alex to come look. “She was something else back then, wasn’t she? Miranda.”
    “A regular babe.” Tears welled in Alex’s eyes, though she wiped them away hastily. “That’s what Karsh once said.”
    “I wish she’d come to meet us. Do you believe she’s really at that Crailmore place?” Cam asked.
    “Under the watchful and healing presence of dear Uncle Thantos?” Alex retorted sarcastically.
    “Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s find out.” Cam flipped open her cell phone.
    Alex snickered, “You’re gonna
call
her? How? Oh, wait, I can just hear the conversation.” She put on a computer voice. “‘AT&T Direct. City and state, please.’” Alex then mimicked Cam, whining, “‘Don’t you have a listing for Coventry Island? No, there’s no address. They don’t
do
addresses there. Can’t you just connect me with Crailmore?’ ”
    Cam frowned. It irked her when Alex was right. “Well, maybe somewhere in this mess there’s a phone book.” She refused to give in.
    Alex crossed her arms. “Yeah, I’m sure everything works exactly like in Marble Bay. Give it up, Camryn. If we want to contact our mother right now, our best bet is telepathy.”
    Cam sighed. “Right. And if Mom … Miranda was healthy and had her powers back, she’d have contacted us by now.”
    Unless she doesn’t want to see us
. Cam’s thought, but Alex reluctantly agreed.
    Cam needed to keep moving to keep that thought away. She went back to her search-and-rescue mission using her extraordinary eyesight to find and retrieve anything that might be valuable to Ileana. Underneath an especially dense pile of wreckage, she telescoped in on a painting. The canvas had been viciously slashed; still, you could tell it was a portrait of Karsh. The wise and loving warlock who’d been a grandfather to them: his smile kindly, his eyes twinkling — so alive! For some stupid reason, the portrait suddenly became too heavy for Cam and slipped out of her hands.
    Alex picked it up. “It’s not just that he’s gone, is it?” Alex said intuitively. “You’re freaked about the funeral.”
    Cam shook her head, denying it.
    “Like Jason said, you stink at lying. Give it up, Barnes,” Alex coaxed.
    “I’ve never been to a funeral before.” There, she’d said out loud what she’d refused to even silently admit to herself.
    A surprising wave of tenderness washed over Alex. She knew just then how far she’d come. Or maybe it wasbeing here on Coventry. But instead of her normal reaction, “Oh, poor, pampered, sheltered you,” she heard herself comforting Cam. “It’ll be all right. We’ll be there together. Just squeeze my hand if you get scared. I’ll protect you.”
    Alex broke Cam’s melancholy mood. “Oh, you will? Who’ll protect you? Let’s see, due to death, devastation, and loss of powers, the usual suspects — Karsh, Ileana, and our long-lost mama, Miranda — seem to be unavailable.”
    Alex lifted her chin proudly. “I’m tough, I don’t need protection.”
    There were noises outside the cottage, footsteps on