“How did you —”
“Where did you —”
The twins stopped as their mother pushed forward. “Let’s get you out of there before that happens again.”
“Don’t be silly,” the boy said. “I have everything perfectly under control.”
“Yeah, it looks like it,” Jaide said.
“I’ve heard of raining cats and dogs,” said Ari with poorly concealed amusement, “but this is ridiculous.”
Jaide took one arm while her mother took the other. Jack’s hands went under the boy’s armpits.
“One, two, three,” said Susan. Together they lifted.
“Ow, that hurts,” the boy complained. “Stop or you’ll leave my feet behind!”
“Hmm,” said Susan, letting go. “What’s your name?”
“I am Stefano Battaglia, master of lightning!”
“Well, Stefano Battaglia, you are firmly stuck in the dirt.” She scratched her head. “We might have to dig you out. Let me go find a shovel.”
Jack inspected the soil around Stefano’s knees. It was tightly compacted, and oddly crystalline after the lightning strike, but it looked as though it would shift if he pushed here … perhaps dug out that divot there…. Dimly, he heard Jaide talking.
“This is Jack and I’m Jaide,” she said. “I thought you were going to be our dad. He likes to travel this way, too.”
“Hector? Oh, no. I’m fully qualified to bolt on my own. It’s quite easy when you get the hang of it.”
“You know Dad?”
“Of course I do. He’s my mentor.” Stefano studied her with his head to one side. “You really don’t know who I am?”
“Sorry, no.”
“How odd. And I’ve studied with him for a year, too.” Stefano looked up at her. “He didn’t tell me there was another lightning wielder in the family.”
Jaide blinked. “Do you mean me?”
“Of course. How else did you know I was on my way to you?”
She could only gape at him. This was too many surprises at once. First, Hector had a protégé he had never mentioned, and now her second Gift might be the same as his, giving her power over lightning and the ability to travel by thunderstorm. Gifts did occasionally run in a family, but she had never dared dream of this.
“Or maybe,” Stefano added with a slight curl to his lip, “you just got lucky.”
The return of Susan, armed with a shovel, a trowel, and a gardening fork, was all that stopped Jaide from telling him what she thought of that idea.
“Here we are,” said Susan, glancing at the sky. “I don’t think it’s going to rain, but let’s get a move on, just in case.”
Jack sat back, wiped his dirty hands on his jeans, and looked up at everyone. He had been thoroughly involved in what he was doing. It occurred to him that he had missed something.
“What?” he said.
“We’re going to dig him out,” said Susan, handing him the trowel.
“Uh, I think I’ve done that already,” he said, pointing at the loosened earth. “Try moving your legs.”
Stefano tentatively raised his right knee, and it came cleanly out of the soil. Jaide and Susan helped him lift his left leg out and step up to ground level. Once released, he was surprisingly tall.
“Finally,” he said, instead of saying thanks. And instead of helping Jack to his feet, he reached for a small satchel lying nearby and slung it over his shoulder. “If you show me to my room, I’d like to freshen up.”
“Room?” said Jack and Jaide at the same time.
“Are you sure you’ve come to the right place?” said Susan, looking as perplexed as the twins felt.
“He has,” said Grandma X from the back porch. “I was going to tell you all earlier, but … recent events being as they are …”
She stepped out of the pool of light shining from the doorway, into the night. Both twins were struck by how old she looked, as though the Grand Gathering had drained her of her usual vitality. Above them, the clouds were dispersing and the stars coming out. Not even a full moon peeking around the Rock could bring out the usual sparkle to her eyes.
“Hector has asked me to take in Stefano here for special training,” she explained. “He’s a troubletwister, just a little more advanced in his experience.”
“What kind of special training?” asked Jack. He had never met another troubletwister before. No one had ever told him that they could be taught different things.
“Don’t worry about that. Let’s get our guest inside and make him feel welcome. Come on, Stefano, make sure you wipe your shoes thoroughly. They’re quite amazingly muddy.”
The twins and their mother followed Grandma X and Stefano into the house and up the stairs. Stefano simply nodded as the basic layout of the house was explained to him. He seemed more interested in the cabinets of oddities that filled the corridors and the unusual paintings hanging on the walls. Once, he stopped to examine the frame of a map depicting in some considerable detail a continent Jaide had never heard of. “Fake,” he said with a sniff, and continued on.
Only on seeing the twins’ room on the second floor did he exhibit any signs of appreciation.
“This looks very comfortable!” He shouldered his way into the room, taking in the four-poster beds, the generous chests, and the chandelier. “A bit messy, though.”
“Actually, you’re through here,” said Grandma X before the bristling twins could respond. She guided him to a door that neither of them had seen before, which opened into a much smaller room just next door. It contained a narrow cot, a single chest of drawers, and one lamp. There was just one miserly window, high up on the wall. It looked as though it had never been opened.
“Well,” Stefano said, looking down the length of his nose, “I suppose this will have to do.”
“Freshen yourself up and then come downstairs,” Grandma X told him. “Susan has prepared a meal for us all, I believe.”
“Oh, yes,” said the twins’ mother, remembering her politeness. “You’re very welcome to join us … to stay, I mean … please, just feel welcome. It’s not your fault Hector didn’t tell us. I’ll talk to him later.”
The four of them bustled out, leaving the stranger to settle in on his own.
“What the —”
“How can —”
Grandma X silenced the twins with a finger to each of their lips and ushered them all downstairs. Kleo sneezed as they entered the kitchen. The air was hazy with smoke.
“Oh, no, the piecrust!”
Susan whipped open the oven and removed a pot pie. It had turned black around the edges. One ornamental leaf seemed to actually be on fire.
“No problems,” she said, producing a large carving knife. “I reckon this can be salvaged.”
While she hacked away the portions of the piecrust that had turned most thoroughly to charcoal, Grandma X answered the twins’ many questions, most of them concerning how long she had known, and who was Stefano, anyway? She explained that the role of mentor was a perfectly ordinary one because troubletwisters always found it problematic to be around their Warden parent while learning their Gifts. That was exactly the role Jack and Jaide shared with her and Custer, although they had never had it described that way before. Hector had asked her to take on Stefano just that morning, and she would have told the twins that afternoon had she not been distracted.
“Where’s Stefano’s twin?” asked Jaide. “He does have one, doesn’t he?”
“Santino’s still with Hector,” Grandma X explained. “They’re working on something secret, Hector said … although I can probably guess what that is, now that I come to think of it….”
“Project Thunderclap?” asked Jack.
“Your guess, Jackaran, is as good as mine.”
The twins waited for her to say more, but her face had become stony, and they knew better than to push her when she used their full first names.
“Is it going to be a permanent arrangement?” asked Susan. “With Stefano
, I mean.”
“No,” Grandma X said. “A fortnight or two should do it. I don’t imagine it’ll take me any longer than that to teach him what he needs to know.”
“Right, well,” Susan said, “we’ll have to think about school. How old is he?”
“Fourteen,” said Grandma X.
“Only a year older than the twins, then. They could introduce him to Tara and Kyle and their other friends. I’ll call Mr. Carver in the morning.”
Jack rolled his eyes at Jaide, who made an anxious face back. They had nothing against new kids at school — they had recently been new kids themselves, as had Tara — but not when the new kid barged into their home and acted as if he owned the place. Besides, Tara and Kyle were their only real friends. They didn’t have any others to share.
“What is that smell?”
Stefano was standing in the doorway, his face twisted in an agonized expression.
“That’s dinner,” said Grandma X, as though burned pot pie was perfectly ordinary fare. And it was, Jack reflected, all too often.
“These will need to be washed.” Stefano hefted his muddy trousers.
“Put them in the laundry and I’ll show you how to use the washing machine later.” Grandma X indicated a seat. “Come in and join us.”
Stefano did so, his nose screwed up in distaste. But for the contortion, he might have been handsome, Jaide thought. His dark hair was curly and hung down to his shoulders. His eyes were a surprising blue. He had freckles.
Susan served up vigorously revitalized and irregularly shaped portions of the pot pie, declaring it to be chicken. Jack might ordinarily have made his skepticism known, but in front of Stefano he felt too bad for his mother to say anything other than “Delicious!”
“Tell us where you’re from,” Susan asked Stefano.
“My brother and I were born in Ravenna, Italy,” he said around a mouthful of pie that he seemed to be having difficulty swallowing. “Our father is a carpenter, and we grew up with him until our Gifts awoke.”
“You don’t have much of an accent,” said Jack.
“Mama was English. Besides, I’ve spent the last two years traveling the world. It rubs off on you.”
For all her reservations, Jaide was impressed. “Traveling with Dad?”
“Yes, with Hector. He is a very good teacher. We would have nothing but the best.”
“What kind of things do you do with him?” asked Susan.
“Ordinary stuff,” he said with an expansive wave that almost knocked Ari off the kitchen counter. “Last year we retrieved the Crown of Clowns from the underground city of Ortahisar and fought an outbreak of The Evil in Stockholm. And then there was the rescue of Professor Olafsson from the minions of The Evil, of course. That was quite a scene.”
The twins leaned in eagerly.
“You found him?” asked Jaide. “Where was he?”
“Oh, we helped in a small way. It was all in a day’s work.”
Jack didn’t know whether to be jealous, amazed, or suspicious. Why wasn’t he having adventures like that, instead of being stuck in an old house in Portland? It wasn’t as if they hadn’t had their fair share of blow-ups, some of them rather awful, in fact, but none of them sounded as excellent as this. Could it be true?
Jaide was having similar thoughts. Perhaps when she became a proper Warden she would be able to do these kinds of things. If only they could do them with their father now, without their Gifts going haywire …
“I’m glad Professor Olafsson is safe,” she said. “Where is he?”
“It’s not really him. It’s just a relic.”
“His relic, then.”
“In Beacon Hill, with Aleksandr.”
“Where’s that?” asked Jack.
“Don’t you know? It’s where all the important Wardens like Aleksandr live. I’ve been there often.”
“Have you, Grandma?” Jack asked, hoping she would say something to outcompete what was obviously a wild boast.
“Not for a very, very long time,” she said, wrenching herself from what looked like a very deep thought. “I have no reason to leave Portland.”
“And of course, you can’t,” said Stefano.
“Can’t what?” asked Jaide.
“Leave Portland,” Stefano said as though stating the glaringly obvious. “If she does, the wards will fail. While she’s the Warden of Portland, she can’t leave. She’s stuck here until she retires.”
Jaide stared at Grandma X, knowing instinctively that what Stefano said was true. She and Jack had often wondered what would happen if Grandma X ever left the wards — indeed, she had gone to great lengths not to in the past — but they had never known it was so clear-cut. She was trapped in Portland until someone came to relieve her.
“I didn’t know Wardens retired,” said Susan with a raised eyebrow.
“It’s a polite way of saying dies,” said Grandma X, with something of her usual spirit. “Now, there’s another matter I need to talk with you three about. It was decided only an hour ago, so it’ll be news to you all.”
Susan got up and started clearing plates. No one had eaten very much.
“I won’t tell you why Stefano is here,” Grandma X told the troubletwisters. “That’s between him and me, although if he wants to tell you himself, he may. However, one thing Hector did ask me to do was to submit him to an immediate Examination. I’m telling you this, Jack and Jaide, because I’ve decided that you should be Examined also. The process will begin tomorrow and conclude Saturday. Do you have any questions?”
Jack looked at Jaide, and both of them looked at Stefano. He had gone pale, which was worrying.
“What’s an Examination?” asked Jack. “I presume you’re not talking about anything to do with school.”
“Hardly. The Examination tests your fitness to advance to the next degree of proficiency,” Grandma X said. “I have heard it described as ‘going up a level.’”
That sounded promising. Among the things the twins had learned about Wardens was that there was a definite hierarchical structure in the otherwise fairly loose society. The lowest rung on the ladder was, of course, to be a troubletwister, a youngster just coming into their Gift. How many steps there were, they didn’t know.
“If we pass does it mean we’ll be Wardens?” asked Jack hopefully.
“No, but you will be one very important step closer.”
“What kind of test is it?” Jaide asked. “Multiple choice?”
Stefano uttered a strangled sound that didn’t sound as though it had ever been a word.
“No,” said Grandma X. “It’s not that kind of test.”
“Rats,” said Jaide, who was convinced that B was her lucky letter.
“Will it be dangerous?” asked Susan. Sometimes she wished she had never pushed to know more about what her children got up to with their grandmother. Knowing even a little left her in a constant state of anxiety.
“It will be … trying,” said Grandma X, “or else it wouldn’t be a test. Jack and Jaide have tonight to prepare. I have arranged for the Examiner to attend them at eight thirty. The process will entail missing a small amount of school.”
Normally, Jaide would cheer that news. “Don’t forget we have soccer tryouts in the afternoon!”
“How could I?” Grandma X offered her a smile that was reassuring on that score. The coming weekend was a long weekend, thanks to a public holiday on that Friday, and Portland was hosting a regional soccer match, something that had been on the twins’ minds the whole month. Mr. Carver hadn’t picked the under-15 team yet and they were both hoping to be on it. “I can assure you that you won’t miss out.”
Stefano’s gaze was darting from Jack to Jaide, and back again. “I play soccer also. If I must attend school, do you think I could join the tryouts as well?”
“I don’t see why not,” said Grandma X. “In fact, as Hector told me that you have already sat the first round of Examination, you will be going to school in the morning. I’
ll send the twins on when they’re done.”
Weirdly, and worryingly, Stefano actually looked relieved at the thought of going to school.
“Won’t you tell us anything about the Examination?” asked Jack.
“You know all you need to know,” said Grandma X.
“But we don’t know anything!” said Jaide. “How can we prepare if we don’t even know what to prepare for?
“You have been preparing every day since you became a troubletwister. The Examination will tell us how far you have come. That is all.”
The twins spent the remainder of the evening hiding out in their room, avoiding Stefano while fretting about the Examination and grilling the cats for information. Kleo’s lips were sealed, as they ever were when it came to information Grandma X wanted to keep hidden from the troubletwisters. Ari was more likely to let secrets slip, but even he had little to offer.
“I only know what I hear other Wardens talk about,” he said, “and there have been no Examinations since I became a Companion.”
“None at all?” asked Jaide. “I assumed there were lots of troubletwisters before us.”
“No. Your grandmother has been alone as long as I’ve known her.”
“Apart from us,” Kleo pointed out.
“And the Living Ward, I guess,” Ari added, “although you’d have to say a giant mutant axolotl probably wasn’t the best company. She certainly didn’t have it around for tea.”
Jack felt a pang of sadness for his grandmother then. Until the twins had arrived to stay with her, she’d had no contact with them, or Susan, and rarely Hector. Her sister, Lottie, had been lost in the Evil Dimension. Her husband and parents were dead. The only other person who had seemed to be friendly with her was Rodeo Dave, who owned the secondhand bookstore on the corner of Watchward Lane. He had once been a Warden himself, and fancied Lottie to boot, but he had had his memories erased a long time ago and didn’t know anything about Grandma X’s secret life. No wonder she had seemed so scary when they’d arrived: She just wasn’t used to having people around.
“Lights out in half an hour,” said Susan, sticking her head around the door. “Last chance to do your chores.”