4

Justin hurried down the steps to the bedrooms carrying his chemistry notebook. Despite starting late, he and Zeke had created a decent experiment to show to the school for the Science Fair next month. All they had to do was develop a presentation. He looked ahead to his parents in the kitchen and pranced through his good mood up to them.

"Mom, dad…" He tried to be humble. "I really think I'm going to get the First Prize trophy for Science this year." He lit up smiling.

"That's great, Justin…" Jerry sipped his coffee and looked to his wife. "I was starting to think the other five were going to get lonely." There was a sound from the steps to the basement, and Harper came around from under the staircase. She was not her usual jovial and happy self. Her face was furrowed with lines of worry, her eyes were confused and her left hand distractedly pulled her hair back behind her ear. She paused at the bottom steps looking up then turned toward Alex's mother.

"Mrs. Russo, has Alex come down yet?" She asked furtively.

"No, honey, she hasn't, but then she usually sleeps until one o'clock on Sunday." Theresa answered.

"Something weird happened to me yesterday…" Harper strided forward trying to think. "Alex and I were…" She noticed the eleven bags from Lafferty's and dropped her jaw in surprise. She looked in the first one then the second and found the black leather jacket with all the zippers and pockets that Alex had wanted. She had been with her two weeks ago when they were going to wait for the sale to get it. "Why that…. She went to the sale without me! How could she do that?" She whirled around upset. "Mrs. Russo, do you know what your daughter is? She's a no good…"

"Harper!" Theresa stopped her. "You were there too!"

"I was?" Harper became confused again.

"Yes…" Theresa looked to her husband with a happy nostalgic grin. "We had a really nice time!"

"We did?" Harper laid the jacket over the bags confused. "Why don't I remember? Did I have another spell on me?"

"Harper…" Jerry came over to help her. "What's the matter? You don't recall anything from yesterday?"

"No! Nothing!"

"Dad…." Justin became concerned. "Whatever Harper had must have been catching. I blacked out part of Friday!"

"You mean…" Jerry thought back to that afternoon. "You don't remember telling us about the Civil War gold in the basement of the school?"

"What Civil War gold in the basement of the school?" Justin stood stunned. "You mean the story mom told me about?" Jerry and Theresa looked at each other as Justin and Harper looked at each other. What was going on here?

"Alex!" They all rushed to the staircase fearing the worst. The story had to be a ruse. It had to be a lie. Something had manipulated them to get Alex to head to the school. They rushed to make sure Alex was in her bedroom then heard someone coming down. Max appeared from the top landing.

"Don't worry…" Max held his hands up to accept their applause. "I put on new underwear this morning."

"Max!" Theresa heart was pounding with fear. "Please tell me Alex is in her room."

"Okay, she's in her room…" Max told her what she wanted to hear and everyone relaxed. "But she really isn't…"

"No!" Jerry started clutching his heart again, and Justin pulled out his wand. When he tapped it, the end lit up with a small bright light equal to a very small sparkler.

"I should have know something was up yesterday when Justin did that spell yesterday without…" Jerry feared the worse and looked to his oldest son. "Justin, what do you have?"

"Dad, I've got my wand linked to Alex's wand." Justin moved his mystical tool to get a direction. Harper watched eagerly waiting for good luck as Justin scanned left and right then behind him and past his mother. His wand was getting a signal from Alex and her wand, but it only got stronger toward the stairs and it lit up even brighter when he aimed it straight up.

"She's in heaven with grandpa." Max mumbled out loud.

"She's on the roof!" Jerry screamed and dashed up the stairs ahead of everyone else. He tore past his room and Alex's and pulled open the door to the linen closet outside the bathroom. The ladder just off to the side headed up to the ledge outside of the lair in the attic. With the mystical portal downstairs, they almost never used it. Jerry jumped on to the second rung and lifted himself up one rung after another with everyone watching under him. At the top was a cast-iron hatch with a lever he had to flip down to open. He hadn't been up here since the summer of 2001 when Max got his kite stuck up here. With a loud metallic thunk, the hatch popped open and Jerry lifted himself up and out. The surface of the roof crunched like broken potato chips under his feet. He tugged his hands under his armpits from the cold wind and narrowed his eyes from the temperature.

"Jerry?" Theresa called to him.

On the roof, Jerry found old burned out Christmas lights, the old aerial TV antenna, Justin's old busted telescope and a rusted out charcoal grill with no bottom. Imbedded in the center was Alex's wand sitting straight up, driven an inch into the roof and discarded without her.