“But you know yourself that we didn’t get any of Mom’s powers.”
He nodded. “Yes, that’s what we always thought. But the witch seems to think otherwise. When I resisted her probing in my head, she asked me where the source of my power was.”
“But—”
“I know. I told her I had no powers, but she didn’t believe me at first. Would I really let her beat the hell out of me if I had any witchcraft to oppose her? You bet I wouldn’t.”
“Figures.” Yvette’s lips twitched into the beginning of a smile which she tried to conceal with a snort, but he caught it nevertheless. When she looked at him like that, and when they engaged in these light, friendly, vocal sparring matches with one another, he could almost forget what she was.
“So the witch is mistaken. We have no powers,” Wesley insisted.
Maybe that was what they all thought, but there was one thing the witch had said before he’d passed out that made him suspect that they’d been wrong all these years. “She wondered whether Mom had ever told us.”
“Told us what?” Sometimes his little brother could be really thick and slow on the uptake.
“That you do have her power.” Yvette pushed her long hair back over her shoulder.
“But then why wouldn’t we have known all these years? It makes no sense. I never felt any power.”
“It’s the first time the three of you are together after you mother’s death. Maybe that’s how you all receive your powers, by being together.” Yvette shrugged. “I don’t know much about this, but I know what I smell. And the three of you are witches. Which means Kimberly has to be Katie.”
Dead silence greeted this remark and three sets of eyes stared at Yvette out of identically shocked faces. Haven was the first to recover. “But if that’s the case, why would the witch put us all together if that gave us powers? What if we used that power to defeat her?”
Yvette shrugged. “Do you feel any different? I mean, do you feel like you have some power now?”
“How the hell would I know?” Haven grumbled.
“Well, just think of moving something.” Yvette looked around, then pointed at the cot. “Move that bed with your mind.”
Haven had to restrain himself from rolling his eyes. How would he be able to suddenly move objects? Not even David Copperfield could do that without setting up his trick beforehand.
“Just try it,” Yvette urged. “All of you.”
Despite the stupidity of the suggestion, Haven concentrated on the cot and willed it to move. Nothing happened. Just like he’d thought.
He had no powers.
“Nothing,” Kimberly said.
“Same,” Wes confirmed. “We have no powers. Ergo, we’re not witches.”
Yvette put her finger to her mouth, biting her nail. “I’ve never been wrong about my sense of smell. Maybe there’s a spell or something that you have to do first before you get your powers.” She paused, clearly thinking hard. Then her face lit up, and she stared at Haven. “Did the witch ask you where your seat of power was?”
“Yes she did, as a matter of fact, but I have no idea what she means by that.”
“I think you’ll have to tap into something to access your powers. Maybe that’s why she feels confident that you can’t access the power yourself. Perhaps she was testing you.”
“But if I don’t know what the seat of my power is, then how would she?”
“Maybe she doesn’t need to know it. If she wants to steal your powers, and at this point we have to assume that’s why she brought the three of you together, then maybe she doesn’t need to know. What if she can steal it without that knowledge?”
Haven let the idea take root in his mind. Could the witch really have succeeded in finding Katie when he’d been searching without success all his life? And if she had, if Kimberly was truly Katie, was it true what Yvette suspected? Were the three of them witches with powers yet untapped?
“How would we know for sure? It’s not like we can do a blood test here and run our DNA.” As much as Haven wanted to believe that they’d finally found Katie, he couldn’t allow himself to get his hopes up only to have them come crashing down again.
He directed an encouraging smile at Kimberly, who met his look with round eyes. “I would love for Yvette to be right. I would love for you to be our sister, but there’s no proof, just coincidences and assumptions. I need more than that.”
Kimberly nodded, disappointment etched into her features. “I understand. It would be nice to have a family. I guess it’s just too much to ask.” She wrapped her arms around her waist, and he recognized her need to be held and comforted. But he couldn’t cross the distance between them and take her into his arms. For all he knew, he was just a stranger, one who’d kidnapped her. As a brother, he could hug her and tell her that everything would be alright. As a stranger, he had no business doing so.