Witch and Wizard - James Patterson [64]
It took us half an hour or so to walk to it, and all the while the pit of my stomach dropped farther and farther.
But I didn’t truly feel like I was going to throw up until I saw the birdhouse.
Our birdhouse. The birdhouse Dad had built for Whit and me, and our mom. Nailed just where it had always been, twenty feet up on the massive trunk of the oak tree in our backyard.
How many times had I looked up at that spreading oak tree? My dad said it had been there for a hundred years or more. Whit and I had climbed it when we were little. Whit had used its acorns for batting practice, plinking them sometimes all the way over the neighbor’s roof. Also, he had fallen from that tree, breaking his leg like it was made of peanut brittle.
Now the tree stood by itself at the edge of a recently planted New Order field.
Everything around it, every house—ours included—was gone.
Chapter 102
Wisty
“WHERE’S OUR HOUSE? Where are Mom and Dad?” I said in a whisper, looking at the rippling corn patch where we used to live, where we had grown up, where we’d had such unbelievably happy times—except maybe my school-detention days.
I remembered what Mom had said whenever we came back from a vacation. I remembered every word.
North, east, south, and west
Our home is in the center.
Though we may roam, our home is best
And speak love, you may enter.
To be honest, I’d never really understood it, and the last line had never made any sense. Speak of love? Speak about love? Someone’s nickname is Love, and she’s telling him to speak?
I murmured the rhyme again, as mystified by it as I had been by everything else that’d happened since my normal life became my nightmare life.
“And speak love, you may enter,” Whit mused.
“Speak love,” I repeated, my heart aching. Then… “Oh. Wait. Speak love!”
I stepped forward, closer to where our front steps had been.
“Love,” I said loudly and clearly. “Love.”
Then I held my breath as a ghostly shape began to form in front of us. It was our home, vaporous, see-through, not totally real. But the memory of our house, the essence of our house, was here, right down to the ivy that climbed the southern wall and an old deflated football of Whit’s.
Then the front door opened, and I felt my heart thudding heavily inside my chest.
Please. Not The One, I prayed.
Chapter 103
Wisty
“MOM,” I WHISPERED as her form started down the steps. “Dad.”
They came to us, and of course we wanted to hug them, but we couldn’t, any more than Whit could hug Celia.
A horrible realization dawned on me. “Are you Half-lights?” I asked, my voice twisting hideously, on the verge of a bawl. “Are you dead?”
“We’re not dead, Wisty,” Mom said. “We’re just someplace else. You’ll see the real us soon enough. I hope so.”
“Mom,” I said again, my jubilation at her words almost making me faint. Could my emotions possibly roller-coaster any worse than this? I threw my arms out and tried to hug her again.
“Why can’t we touch you, then?”
“My sweet darlings,” Mom said, and it was pure her. “We’re alive, trust me. But we’re not really here right now. Magic has brought us to you today…. Someone else’s magic.”
Dad chimed in. “The important thing is that you know we’re so very proud of you. Your time in prison. How you rescued the children. How you dealt with that evil and unworthy judge. And The One Who Thinks He Is The One. You’ve done amazingly well.”
“You two are the present, and the future,” Mom said, smiling. “And now we know you can do it. This has just been a warm-up.”
“A warm-up… for what?” I asked. “I just want to be home again.”
Mom smiled wistfully. “You’ll see. But first you have to believe, Wisty, that you’re a very, very good witch. And one day, you’ll be a famous musician too.”
“And you’re a very, very good wizard, Whit,” Dad told him. “And, believe it or not, you’re going to be an important writer.”
Whit looked aghast. “I thought that the wizard thing was pretty out-there, Dad, but… a writer? You’ve got to be kidding.”
“Do you have your journal?” Dad asked, still very serious,