01_-_The_Alchemyst

mirror, his image was different, broken or distorted.
“What do you smell?” Scatty asked.
“It’s like…” Sophie paused. “Like woodsmoke in the fall.”
“So she has been here.”
Sophie and Josh looked at her blankly.
“That’s the odor of the Witch of Endor. That’s the scent of eldritch
magic.”
Flamel stood by the door looking up and down the street. “She can’t
have gone far, if she left the shop unlocked. I’m going to go look for her.” He
turned to Scatty. “How will I recognize her?”
She grinned, eyes bright and wicked. “Trust me; you’ll know her when
you see her.”
“I’ll be back shortly.”
As Flamel stepped out into the street, a big motorcycle pulled up almost
directly outside the shop. The rider sat there for a moment and then gunned
his engine and roared away. The noise was incredible: all the glassware in
the tiny shop shivered and vibrated with the sound. Sophie pressed both
hands to her ears. “I don’t know how much more of this I can take,” she
whispered tearfully.
Josh led his sister to a plain wooden chair and made her sit down. He
crouched on one side, wanting to hold her hand, but frightened of touching
her. He felt utterly useless.
Scatty knelt down directly in front of Sophie, so that their faces were
level. “When Hekate Awakened you, she didn’t have a chance to teach you
how to turn your Awakened senses on and off. Your senses are stuck on at the
moment, but it won’t be like that all the time, I promise you. With a little
training and a few basic protective spells, you’ll learn to turn your senses on
for just the briefest of periods.”
Josh looked at the two girls. Once again, he felt apart from his twin:
truly apart. They were fraternal twins, and therefore not genetically identical.