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Another one of Alfred’s Gifts, she assumed. But where did the Examination come into it?
The bolt of lightning that very nearly hit her provided the answer to that question, closely followed by a second, and a third.
Blinded and half stunned, she tried calling for help, but either the lightning interfered with her mental voice or Jack was tied up elsewhere in his own trials. What form they were taking she couldn’t imagine. For now she had to concentrate entirely on her own.
Another trio of lightning bolts left her feeling frazzled and more than a little crispy, like bacon that had been fried for too long.
Survival, she thought. That was Alfred’s point this time. The first test had been about finding Jack using her mental voice and getting home. Now it was just about staying alive, if she could. And her new Gift was the only thing she could draw on to help her.
She’d had no opportunity to explore or develop that Gift, though, not properly. Reaching for it now, she found it readily enough, coiled inside her like a part of her she’d never noticed before. It stirred when she called it. It seemed to listen when she spoke to it, albeit at some remove.
She felt the electricity building in the air and knew there was going to be another bolt coming her way soon. Her skin tingled and her hair stood on end.
“Protect me,” she said. “Don’t let the lightning hit me.”
Her Gift seemed to agree.
But when the lightning struck, it prompted a chain reaction of flashes and sheets that set the entire storm alight. Her Gift keened with the joy of it, and too late Jaide was reminded of how her first Gift loved more than anything to form storms and whirling dervishes at the slightest provocation. Why would this one be any different?
She curled into a ball and put her arms around her head, riding out the lightning while remembering Alfred’s words of warning after the first test: Your Gifts are not your friends. You think you control them, but you do not. They will fight you at every turn, unless you have … wooed them correctly.
How did one woo lightning, she wondered as the conflagration gradually eased. What could she possibly tell this Gift to make it calm down?
* * *
Jack had a mouthful of dirt. His plan had gone spectacularly wrong. His attempt to reach out to the earth around him using his second Gift had resulted in his cage of wood being broken open, but instead of letting him out, it had only let the dirt in. He felt the dirt shifting and wriggling into the coffin around him, inching its way down his limbs. If he didn’t think fast he would be completely covered and would suffocate.
But there was air down there with him, a bubble of it that had been trapped with him. It was just in the wrong place, squashed around his feet when he needed it at his head, so he could breathe it.
Jack could no longer speak aloud, but he didn’t normally speak aloud to use his first Gift. He just willed it to do what he wanted. He attempted this with the dirt while his air lasted, trying not to think about what would happen if he got it wrong.
The dirt obliged, shifting around him so the bubble could move up to his head. When his mouth and nostrils cleared, he took a deep, gasping breath. The air was already a little stale, smelling of earthworms and his own feet, but it was the sweetest breath he had ever drawn.
“Thank you,” he said, and the earth wriggled around him like an excited puppy. That surprised him, since it had come so close to smothering him a moment ago. Perhaps it didn’t mean him any actual harm, but simply didn’t know him well yet. They were new friends, and it was excited to meet him, but it would take time to understand that being so close to him might actually kill him if it wasn’t careful.
“Will you take me up?” he asked it, pushing his arms above his head through the damp soil. “Will you do that for me?”
The earth wriggled again, and slowly, painfully, he began to go upward.
* * *
The problem, thought Jaide, wasn’t that she had too much lightning. The problem was that it was the wrong kind of lightning. She might not be able to stop her new Gift from being excited and wanting to play, but perhaps she could encourage it to do so in a way that helped her.
“Yes, like that,” she said, sweeping her arms around her like a shepherd giving directions to flying sheep. “All the way around … that’s perfect!”
Crackling and snapping, her new Gift formed a cage of electricity that surrounded her completely. When next the hurricane’s lightning struck, it passed through the cage around her, leaving her completely unscathed.
A sense of accomplishment flooded her. She was still tumbling through a hurricane, but at least she was safe. She wasn’t going to die any time soon, unless it was of boredom, or starvation. She had befriended her second Gift.
“Is that it?” she asked aloud, assuming the Examiner could hear her somehow, even over the roaring of the storm. “Did I pass?”
After a long second, during which time she experienced a moment of doubt — what if she was wrong? What if she had misjudged the Examination completely? — Alfred’s voice spoke to her out of the clouds.
“You have passed,” he said, and suddenly she was standing exactly where she had been before, on the porch of Grandma X’s house, and Jack was next to her with dirt in his hair and a look of utter relief on his face. Alfred the Examiner was there, too, looking exactly as he had the previous day.
He was smiling and said, “Well done.”
The twins talked over each other in an attempt to explain what had happened to them and how resourceful they’d been. They had passed the second test and were now two thirds through to being senior troubletwisters! Alfred let them babble, not speaking again until it occurred to them who was missing.
“Where’s Stefano?” asked Jack, looking around him. Apart from the twins and Alfred, the house seemed empty.
“He has not yet completed his task,” was all Alfred said.
“What happens if he doesn’t?” asked Jaide, afraid of what the answer might be. If she or Jack had failed, would they have died underground or in a storm, or would they have been rescued?
“He tries again later.”
“Ohhhhhhh,” said Jack, feeling that he was understanding something now that should have occurred to him long ago. “That’s why he took this test with us but not the first one. He passed the first one the first time he tried. This is his second time at the second one.”
“What happened to his brother?” asked Jaide. “Did he pass?”
“That is for Stefano to explain, not me.”
Jaide nodded. Fair enough, she thought. She wouldn’t want people talking about her failures behind her back.
“What do we do until he comes back?” she asked.
“We wait. You may ask me questions, if you like.”
“When’s the next test?” asked Jack.
“Tomorrow. It will take all day.”
“I have soccer practice in the afternoon,” said Jaide.
“If you perform well, you will be able to attend.”
Jaide nodded, determined to do better than Stefano, at least, in the hope that he might miss out.
“Are the Examinations always the same?” asked Jack. He was wondering if his father had taken the same ones, and Grandma X.
Alfred said, “No and yes. Troubletwisters are always Examined when they obtain a certain degree of proficiency with their Gifts, but it is the Gifts that determine the shape of their Examination.”
Jack nodded. That made sense. So far his and Jaide’s Examinations had been similar in principle but very different in details. If he had been in his sister’s shoes for the last test, he would’ve died for sure.
“Can you give us any hints about the next one?” asked Jaide.
“Troubletwisters always ask,” said Alfred with a slight smile, “and they are always told no. I guarantee that you will be surprised.”
All three turned at the sound of a gasp from the hallway. Stefano had returned. He stood with his arms outstretched, his legs so un
steady that he dropped to one knee and almost fell over. Jaide couldn’t help rushing to help him. He looked so weak and pale. She took one arm while Jack took the other.
Stefano didn’t seem to see them for a moment. Only when he was back on two feet did he look down at them and shrug them off.
“Did I pass?” he asked in a cracked voice.
“Yes,” said Alfred. “You have passed.”
Stefano let out a shuddering breath.
“What happened?” asked Jack.
“Don’t look at me,” Stefano said. He turned and hurried up the stairs. A second later, the door to his bedroom slammed shut.
Jaide turned to Alfred to ask him the same question, but the Examiner had already disappeared.
“He really likes to do that, doesn’t he?” she said in annoyance.
