7
Way to the south and toward the tip of the island purchased so long ago by Peter Minuit from the local indigenous tribes of the area was the community of Waverly Place not far from Greenwich Village. Located atop former farm community was several businesses owned and run by the descendants of the immigrants who had traveled to this area to create new lives in this the United States. In a secret back room of the Waverly Sub Shop, Jerry Russo taught his children the mystical arts of his wizard ancestors, a family directly descended far enough from the legendary god kings of Ancient Greece to practice magic and wizardry but not close enough to be immortal.
"Justin…" Jerry Russo called for his first-born. "You're up first. Remember… Constantus corinthius…"
"Yeah…" Justin stood from the sofa assuredly confidante, looked back at Alex grinning ear to ear then Max sitting bored on the end and looked back on his father. This was an incantation for transforming salt water into fresh water for drinking. Spinning his wand round his fingers, he beamed to his father and scratched his hair with the tip of his wand in his left hand then snapped the fingers of his right hand.
"Constantus corinthus!" He remarked then shook his wand. Drawing his wand back, he shifted back and forth on his feet and folded his arms assuredly.
"Why did you snap your fingers?" Jerry had noticed Justin snapping his fingers.
"I didn't snap my fingers." Justin reacted confused. "Alex, did I snap my fingers?" He looked to his loving sister.
"I didn't hear him snap his fingers, dad." Alex responded just as adamant.
"No, I heard him snap his fingers." Max remarked, and Alex elbowed him hard to the ribs. Leaning forward from the pain, Max groaned as his father checked the accuracy of Justin's spell. He had filled the glass with saltwater, but tasting it, he had none of the gagging salt taste. It was cool and refreshing as he drank it up.
"It didn't matter…" Jerry gasped from that wonderful drink. "It worked. It even tasted a bit sugary and minty!"
"Of course…" Justin grinned as he took his seat. He and Alex grinned at each other secretly as she took her turn at a second glass of saltwater. Standing up before her father, Alex pretended to stir her wand at the glass of saltwater. Justin snapped his fingers again.
"Constantus correctus!" Grinning secretly, Alex said the spell with her wand.
"Justin, you snapped your fingers again..." Jerry definitely heard it that time. He looked at his daughter, checked her spell and sipped from her glass. Once more, he had cool and refreshing fresh water mystically transferred from saltwater. He gasped contently from that second drink.
"… And Alex, you said the wrong words, and yet, it still worked!" He still had her fresh water on his lips. "And it tastes sugary and minty again! What the heck's going on around here?"
"I guess I'm just getting really good at my wizardry!" Alex shined happily with a big grin to her face. She had never been this exuberant. Turning round, her hand reached to high five her older brother and she took her seat again to lean into Justin and support her head in her hand with her elbow on his shoulder. They had been acting really close for the last few days, and Max couldn't stand it. He looked at them frustratedly confused and annoyed. Taking his wand, he waited as his father took out the last glass of saltwater.
"Okay…" Max got ready, cleared his throat and waved his wand. "Constantus corinthus!"
Justin snapped his fingers again as Max's glass belched and filled with mud. It belched forward with a thin disgusting dirt and muddy water concoction. Jerry jumped back in surprise. Alex hid her face in her older brother's back and giggled secretly. Justin started acting innocent and distracted.
"Max…" Jerry was disappointed. "You got mud again!"
"I haven't got one spell right in three days!" Max complained. "What's going on here?"
"Awwww, Max…" Justin grinned to him with Alex in his back. "You'll get one right sooner or later. Keep trying, little buddy."
"Justin's right, Max…" Jerry supported his youngest boy. "I mean… he's been snapping his fingers a lot the last few days…. " Jerry reacted suspiciously confused to him then turned back to Max. "But you'll get one right sooner or later." He looked at Alex practically seducing her brother and looked even more confused. The two siblings looked at each other, reacted at how close they were and jumped apart trying to be casual. Justin started hugging the armrest, and Alex jumped to the other end with her legs awkwardly folded inward to each other.
"You know," Jerry beamed at his teenage children thinking he'd figured them out. "I'm so proud of you two. You haven't fought or argued or sniped about anything in over three days."
"Yeah, well," Alex looked up with a secret. "You could say that, well, Justin and I have found a way to exist with each other." She looked dreamily to her brother.
"You used two "wells" in that sentence." Jerry was suspicious. "What did you do?"
"Nothing!"
"Dad," Justin came round to his father. "You just don't get it." He grinned, moved close to his sister and put his arm around her waist. "We just realized that there is a lot more to life than fighting with each other."
"Yeah, after all…" Alex noticed where his hand had landed and pulled it off. "We are… brother and sister." They placed their arms around each other and clandestinely grinned in unison.
"I'm so glad to hear it." Jerry smiled himself. "Your mother will be so proud. I'll go tell her." He hastened out of the lair, but Max was a bit more skeptical. He looked his older siblings over and tried to figure them out. Something was up here, but he couldn't figure it out.
"Something's not right here." Their little brother told them. "I'm not sure what it is, but I'll be watching. Yes, I'll be watching." He held two fingers up before his face and then pointed them to his brother and sisters as a gesture of himself watching them. He backed away to head out, looked back and headed out following his father's footsteps to the kitchen. Back in the lair, Alex and Justin waited for him to depart and then a few minutes more.
"William…" Alex brushed her head back from her face. "You've got to be more careful. We could blow this!"
"Alex, everything is all right." William had removed his spell on Alex to see him as Justin ever since the first morning she realized he wasn't Justin. "I've got everything under control. You've got nothing to worry about." Alex was the only one who knew he wasn't really her brother, but Max was dangerously close to figuring it out as well.
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah," He looked at her and brushed her long hair from her eyes. "I got things under control." He paused beaming upon her. "You know… you're just so beautiful." Alex lit up with that compliment. William tilted her head up and kissed her; Alex closed her lips over his. Their hands embraced each other, their breaths joined as one as everything around them vanished from them. All they had was each other for the moment, and that was all they needed as they realized how much they loved each other.
"Alex, honey," Theresa walked in without warning. "Would you explain to me…" She stopped in a cold shock to see her son and daughter in a romantic embrace then jumping apart to her arrival. At first, her eyes refused to believe it, but the two of them jumped back from holding each other, looked to each other very guilty and struggling to respond. Theresa was shocked. She was beyond shocked; she was mortified. Her son… her daughter… together, like that?
"She had something in her eye!" William claimed.
"Yep, that's it!" Alex backed him up. "And he got it right out." She grinned a bit embarrassed. "Thanks again, Will… I mean, Justin."
"Jerry!" Her mouth hanging open, her eyes transfixed, Theresa screamed in shock.
"What?" Jerry came rushing back from the kitchen. "What is it? Are they fighting again?" He tried to be a dad. "I don't know what's wrong with you two?" He shook his hand angrily. "Why can't you…"
"Jerry…" Theresa turned to her husband. "They were kissing!"
"Kissing? Kissing?" Jerry reacted confused. "Is that all? I mean after all the fighting, they…" He finally got it. "They were kissing?" He looked at Alex and who he thought was his son in shock.
"What happened?" Max came a bit late. "Did I miss it? Did I miss it?"
"I had something in my eye." Alex spoke and tried to convince them.
"Mom, dad…" William Troy felt he could still possibly save this situation. "Look, there is a logical explanation for what you just saw. I mean…" He chuckled a bit. "Alex and I were talking, we're getting along…"
"Yeah…" Alex let him take this. "What he says…"
"We just happened to hug each other…" William still tried to be Justin Russo. "That's what mom saw." He claimed mugging a bit too sure of himself.
"On the lips?" Jerry asked his wife.
"On the lips!" Theresa testified as she waited for the truth.
"Ewwww…." Max reacted. "Justin, what were you thinking?"
"May lightning strike this room if I'm lying!" William announced and the entire room started shaking. Alex reached for William, and Theresa grabbed her husband. Max fell over as the room quaked and shook violently as if the whole structure was being ripped from its foundation. Furniture slid toward the opposite sides of the room, shelves collapsed and decorations tumbled to the floor. The ceiling was cracking, the floor itself swaying too and fro threatening to collapse. The back wall of the lair suddenly lay bare as the bricks started cracking apart upward and downward again, pushing and falling free to the floor, revealing space behind it and widening into an aperture large enough for an army to march through, but instead of the bank next door, it was the large foyer of Mason Troia in Upstate Maine. A powerful spell had linked the two unrelated spaces directly between Waverly Place and Collinwood, Maine, linking the two structures on the other-dimensional plane. It was almost as if the shop had been moved and built on to the front of the great mansion. When the rumbling and shaking stopped, Alex hesitantly peered up through the smoke and piles of dislodged brick, toppled furniture and strewn books and bric-a-brac. Terrified and awe-struck by that display of powerful magic, Jerry lifted his trembling wife back up to her feet and noticed three sisters standing beyond them where their wall once rested. Max sat under the table scared for his life and shielded from the debris.
"Hello…" Donna Louise Troy, the blonde, beautiful and shapely patroness of Maison Troia in Maine, casually stepped through the opening grinning harmlessly and pleasantly while holding her hand out to meet Jerry. "Nice to meet you…" She responded cordially. "Sorry about the wall, I'll fix it, but I'm just here to get my son back."
"You… you what…" Afraid and alarmed, Jerry had never experienced such a powerful display of magic. "Your son?"
"Mom, dad…" Justin hurried through jumping over the pile of brinks and around the moved furniture. He hugged his mother and father. "I'm home! I'm home! It is so good to be home! Yes!" Jumping up and down, he was ecstatic!
"Justin?" Theresa recognized him through her terror. "If that's you, then… who is that?" She looked over to where the mystical Justin disguise had slipped from William Troy. No longer resembling Justin, he appeared in his true form, the same guise Alex had seen him as since the beginning of this masquerade. Holding Alex close, he coughed a bit from the disturbed dust and patted Alex to the back as she choked on the dusty air. Looking back, he tried to disarm the situation by flashing his steely grin with a harmless chuckle.
"William Balder Troy…" Standing as an angry parent, Donna said it disapprovingly. "You are in so much trouble. I'm sending you to Camp Half Blood for this."
"No…." The young demigod groused.
"Excuse me…" Jerry came forward confused and perplexed. "Could someone explain what's going on here?"
"Allow me…" Justin spoke up glad to be home. "Dad, that guy replaced me with him, and replaced him with me. He had everyone believing we were each other, and the whole time, Alex knew the truth and didn't say a thing about it!"
"Alex!"
"Hey, hey, hey…" Alex spoke up as William pulled her close. "I had nothing to do with any of this! I'm totally innocent." She and William shared a look. "I'm in love. I finally found someone who gets me!" The two problem children posed grinning side by side.
"You placed a spell on me?" Donna looked at her only son. "On me? Your own mother!"
"It was an accident!" William started his defense. "I was desperate! I had to get away from them!" He pointed to his sisters eavesdropping from the second floor, their eight heads poking over one at a time over the upstairs banister to eavesdrop, only to be joined by Stella, Maddie, Kellie and Emily, his four younger sisters home from Camp Half Blood for the family reunion. They were possibly actually nieces considering they were actually younger clones of Gwen, Jessica, Sara and Alicia created by some very shoddy spell casting, but they acted the majority of the time as if they were his sisters.
"Justin, I'm sorry…" William turned to Justin, demigod to wizard. "But you don't know what I've been through being related to them. They've turned me into their little sister at least five times, transformed me into everything from pets to dolls, sent me to Africa and the North Pole, back in time, embarrassed me in public, eavesdropped on my phone calls… I don't get any privacy around them. They treat each other a heck of a lot better than they treat me! So, when I overheard you wish that Alex wasn't your sister…."
Donna reacted as if she was hearing this all for the first time. As she looked upward at her daughters, one by one each of their twelve heads pretended to get distracted and hide behind the banister except for Gwen who looked to her right and then right again to notice them hiding in shame.
"Back in time? Into their little sister, huh?" Alex perked to attention trying to get a pen to work and jot down that note. "Never mind, I'll remember it."
"Oh yeah," Justin faced back. "Well, you don't know Alex! She breaks into my room, steals my stuff, makes fun of me, breaks the rules and ignores everything I tell her. She's worse I tell you. Worse!"
"Well, I'd much rather live with your sister than with them!"
"With them? With them?" Justin really wanted to beat William up; it was taking all his will power not to do so. "William, I was with your sisters for only three days and believe me, underneath their sniping, fighting, arguing, teasing and mischief, there's actually some real love there. They really do care about you, but under Alex, there's just more… Alex!"
"Hey!" Alex did a double take. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Hold it!" Theresa raised his voice over this teenage drama. "I'm slowly starting to understand what's been going on here. Justin, you've been him at his house…" Justin nodded to confirm it. "And…" Theresa turned to William. "You've been here pretending to be my son and fooling around with my daughter?"
"That makes so much more sense…" Max was shaking his head in disbelief. "I was thinking Justin was replaced by aliens."
"With my daughter?" Jerry snapped to attention, wondered what the young demigod was doing with his daughter beyond his knowledge, placed his hands in a pose to strangle someone and started to reach ahead at William to do his job as a protective parent. Behind Donna, her sisters Paula and Cyndi were leaning on the sides of the opening broken through the two linked residences. Cyndi was short, cute and shapely, and Paula was just as shapely but a bit taller and brunette. There was something oddly familiar with her. Upon seeing her, Jerry paused, stopped and took another look at her.
"I'm sorry, but you look so familiar…" He mentioned to her.
"Yeah…" Paula adjusted her hair and cleared her throat. "I was married to your ancestor Vincent Russo in the Fifteenth Century. I had two sons there, and seven grandchildren…" She smiled over him and fixed his hair. "I was also your nanny."
"You're great grandma Paula!"
"We're related?" Alex freaked and sprang away from William to get closer to her mother. Realizing what she had been doing and with whom, she made a noise of intense revulsion and raced from the lair out to the shop on her way to the upstairs bathroom to get sick.
"Alex, wait…." Realizing what was happening, William tried to stop her. "Please… we're not that closely related! Please… Oh, keep running!" He surrendered her as his mother caught him and held him with her own certain amount of demigoddess enhanced strength. She pulled her baby boy close like she used to, turned him to face her and beamed lovingly to his face.
"Sweetheart…" She held him and glanced into his eyes. "I'm truly sorry I was not there when your sisters did all those mean things to you, but I can promise you - if you go to Camp Half Blood, they won't want to mess with anyone who can use a sword."
"But I don't want to go to Camp Half Blood…" He whined. "I'd much rather be a Russo."
"Wow…" Jerry responded. "I guess that makes us the typical American family." He stood between his wife and two sons.