* * * * *
In science class, Claudia and Caera passed notes with plans for Friday. Mrs. Johnson eyed Claudia suspiciously as she bent over to pick up a note that Caera had dropped onto the floor in the middle of the aisle between them.
"Now, class," she was saying, "what is the byproduct of this process? Amisha, can you tell us?"
"Water?" Amisha guessed, a crease forming between her brows.
"That's right." Mrs. Johnson nodded; Amisha smiled.
Meanwhile, Claudia was getting really uneasy, though she didn't know why. She just looked around the room, her heart racing, as Mrs. Johnson led the discussion. What was wrong with her? she wondered. She just couldn't concentrate anymore. As soon as the bell rang, she made her way out of the classroom. Following behind her, Caera picked up on the anxious mood of her sister.
"Hey, what's the matter, Claudia?" she whispered in concern.
"Caera," Claudia said, giving her a frightful look. "Have you ever dreamed you were drowning?"
"No." Caera said with a little shrug.
"I have. I dreamed I was drowning last night."
"So?" Caera said.
"So--it's nothing." Claudia shook her head.
"I don't believe you."
"That's exactly what I'm afraid you'll say if I tell you anything else about it." Claudia said.
"Huh?" Caera stood still, staring after her as Claudia left the room.
When the Lights Went Out
Friday night at the Campbell house was always something of an adventure. This Friday, however, even the New England weather conspired to deliver a fitting atmosphere for an evening of intrigue, at least as much intrigue as three adolescent imaginations could contrive.
Lightening flashed across the darkening gray sky, and angry thunder rumbled in the distance. Ana arrived at the Campbell house just as the downpour began. She slammed the door of her mother's new Oldsmobile, wetting her hand on the handle and got her suitcase from the back seat.
Ana picked up her overstuffed brown suitcase from the ground and grasped a large, white seal in the other hand. Ana brought her lovable companion with her every time she spent the night, and his worn fur coat was evidence to prove it. She waved good-bye to her mother and ran up the Campbell's long, rain-slick pathway, stopping under the shelter of the front door. She rang the brass doorbell and leaned against the gray stone of the old house to try to keep dry.
The Campbells' home, Argyll House, had been passed from generation to generation for hundreds of years. The twins' grandfather had died just two years before they were born, and since their father was an only child, they had been living in the house ever since. As one of the oldest but more obscure houses in New England, it had recently been named an historical landmark.
Argyll House was one of the last remaining Georgian mansions from the eighteenth century, and the outside was all ashlar stone brought all the way from Pennsylvania and so large that when it was built people had said it would be impossible to heat, just like the Van Cortlandt mansion in New York. It wasn't surprising that every room in Argyll House seemed to have wide, sweeping fireplaces, which had been closed off when the Campbells had central heating put in way back in the 60's.
Argyll House had twenty rooms spread evenly on three floors and a slate-roofed attic that was always leaking. One pathway from the street led directly to the front door. There had once been stables at the back, but they had long ago been converted into a quaint little guesthouse. The guesthouse was adjoined to the garage by a very wide wall made of old stone and age-crumbled brick that Mrs. Campbell had thought too remarkable to knock down. The driveway sloped away from the house, almost hidden from view from the front floor. The house was enclosed by a square, neatly clipped, rich green lawn, underbrush, stone dykes, and lots of purple iris flower beds that were now empty.
Beyond the lawn an untouched New England forest stretched away, dark and dense in places, filled with silver birch, maple, oak, and pine. The Campbell family still owned a large stretch of useless land that not even maple farmers would want; and there was a national forest on the other side, which kept any construction companies from developing the area. Traces of beautiful autumn reds, oranges, and yellows dotted the remaining dark green leaves of summer.
It was four miles into the west side of town, which had grown considerably in size and population over the last hundred years or so. The original, eastern side of town bordered on the ocean. Caera, Claudia, and Ana loved to watch the small pontoons and ships in the harbor and hear the seagulls cry overhead. They loved the smell of the salty sea breeze as they raced down the fishermen's pier toward the beach during the summer, past yachting clubs, seafood restaurants, and tourist shops.
They all missed the old lighthouse, though. A new lighthouse had been built on the ruins of the two hundred year old monument that had burned in a recent fire. The lighthouse sat on a rocky outcropping, a good climb above the ocean.
Ana lived in town in a nineteenth century Victorian town house built ten years after the Civil War. Ana relished any opportunity to spend time away from home because she could escape her obnoxious and annoying fifteen year old brother Jason, who was now trying to get everyone to call him "Jake", just because it sounded cool.
Ana rang the doorbell again. A minute later, Caera and Claudia arrived to help her inside and put her things upstairs in the twins' guestroom. Ana marveled at the newly restored paneling; the wood gleamed and a cool breeze whistled from the overhead fan.
"You've fixed it up!" And said in wonder.
Caera smiled. "And I even helped with the varnish."
Presumably, the Campbell house had once been beautiful and marvelously new inside, and many of the rooms held original Chippendale and Queen Anne chairs, but now the wide, curving staircase with its ornately carved balusters creaked, and in many places the wainscoting was scratched bare and falling to ruin and so of course needed to be replaced. Repair was slow going, however, and expensive, as anyone with an old house knew.
"Caera did that wall." Claudia pointed. "Look closely, and you'll see where she missed a few spots."
Caera ran after her and pretended to punch her. Claudia collapsed in the corner, where they had made a gigantic bed by pushing two double beds together and covering it with two big blue sleeping bags, and she surrendered herself to Caera's retaliation.
"Help me!" Claudia called at last. Ana dropped her sleeping bag and hurried to try to separate the twins. Ana had learned to master twin diplomacy, as Mr. Campbell called it, early in the girls' friendship, and then some time later she'd discovered that there wasn't really a danger of Caera and Claudia actually killing each other.
Caera gave up and bounded to the closed-up cabinet.
"Who wants to watch a movie?" she asked and pulled open the doors. "It's either Agatha Christie or Cleopatra." Caera said, picking over DVD titles.
They decided to watch Cleopatra, even though the three of them had already seen it several times. After the movie came on, they bounded on the bed in mock battle when the Roman legions appeared, and they laughed and giggled when Cleopatra tumbled out of the giant carpet she'd been carried in to see Caesar. Caera got up on the bed after a time and started to deliver a speech Antony wouldn't give until later, a speech from her favorite scene in the movie.
Then suddenly, a knock sounded at the door, and Claudia got up to open it. The twins' mother walked in with two cheese pizzas, one box on top of the other and a package of paper plates tucked under one arm.
"There are sodas downstairs, but I don't want you spilling them on the carpet," she said. The girls shrugged and Claudia took the pizzas, then set them down on the oak table to the left of the T.V. Claudia opened the package of paper plates and took a piece of pizza from each box. Ana and Caera did the same, and they returned to the movie as they ate, and then, even though they complained about it, they went downstairs for a
drink.