Free T*Witches: The Power of Two by Randi Reisfeld, H.B. Gilmour

dehydrated," she ventured. "I mean, there's nothing wrong with you. A spooky thing happened, that's all. Anyone would be freaked if they came face-to-face with—"
     
    "It's not just that," Cam said reluctantly.
     
    "Of course it is! Camryn Alicia Barnes, you are the most totally together person in the whole world. I have firsthand knowledge of that, being the best friend of the most totally—"
     
    "I saw a face, all pasty white, a creature," Cam started.
     
    "—together person in the... a creature? Oh, you mean Alex. Well, her hair was monstrous, but calling her a creature—"
     
    "Beth, please listen," Cam urged. "In the stands. At the game. That's why I didn't make the goal. Something happened, something is wrong with me."
     
    "You just choked. It's unusual for you, but it happens to the best of us. Which, may I remind you, defines you. The best of—"
     
    "I didn't choke. I saw a face in the stands, and I just knew—"
     
    "A bleacher-creature? That's what lost the game for us?" Beth studied Cam skeptically.
     
    "And I knew something was about to happen. Something bad."
     
    Beth cleared her throat. "Let's review. We're about to win the most important game of our soccer careers. You're in position to nail it for us. But instead of kicking the ball, something forces you to look up into the stands. Where you see—what? A pasty-white, uh, creature. And so you freeze. Well, who wouldn't?" Beth dabbed gently at Cam's flushed face with a towel. "And then, I'm thinking aloud here, this old man—what? Kidnaps Marleigh? Is that about it?"
Cam didn't respond.
     
    "Cami," Beth added, "can you hear how that sounds?"
     
    "The old guy didn't kidnap Marleigh. It... he... was trying to tell me something. Warn me that she was in danger. Beth, it's not as if this hasn't happened before. I even told you about it."
Beth scrunched her forehead. "You did?"
     
    "Back in fourth grade, remember, about the bony-faced guy from my dreams? The one who called me Apolla? My parents said it was just a bad dream—"
     
    "I vote for that one," Beth interrupted, trying to lighten the moment.
     
    "You didn't believe me then. You still don't." Cam shook her head. "But what about my premonitions? How sometimes I can, you know, like 'see' what's going to happen. Isn't that kind of the same thing as seeing someone?"
     
    Beth thought about it. "I don't know, Cami—"
     
    "Remember last fall?"
     
    "I was just thinking about that," Beth confessed. "You totally saved my life."
They had been on their way home from school on a street red and yellow with crunchy fallen leaves. Beth stepped off the curb. At the exact same moment, Cam saw what she could not have seen. And grabbed Beth's arm. And yanked her back.
     
    A nanosecond later, an out-of-control car screeched around the corner and totally destroyed, ripped to pieces, the backpack Beth had dropped.
     
    One backpack-turned-roadkill. One friend saved. Thanks to Cam's "seeing" the car seconds before it rounded the corner.
     
    The two of them had stood there on the leaf-thick sidewalk, screaming, shaking, hugging each other, hearts thudding with panic and relief.
     
    In a funny way, Cam felt a lot like she had that day. Now, too, she sensed that something was coming, screeching around the corner, speeding unstoppably toward her. Something even stranger than having a nightmare come true; more important than saving your best friend's life.
     

    Her mom was gone by the time Alex woke up the next morning. So was the letter from the clinic. On the kitchen table, there was a crusty sweet roll her mother had probably snagged at the diner last night, a couple of orange slices, and a note asking if Alex could please catch a ride to work with Evan or Lucinda. It was signed with five X'd kisses and a blot of purple lipstick.
     
    Which for some dumb reason made Alex want to cry. It was all she could do not to pick up the stupid note and press the dorky imprint of her mother's lips against her