01_-_The_Alchemyst

“Don’t ‘Gran’ me,” Dora said, dropping into English again. “You could
have written—any language would have done. You could have phoned….”
“You don’t have a phone.”
“And what’s wrong with e-mail? Or a fax?”
“Gran, have you got a computer or a fax machine?”
Dora stopped. “No. What would I need one of them for?”
Dora’s hand moved and suddenly her white stick extended to its full
length with a snap. She tapped against the glass of a simple square mirror.
“Have you got one of these?”
“Yes, Gran,” Scatty said miserably. Her pale cheeks were flushed red
with embarrassment.
“So you couldn’t find the time to look in a mirror and talk to me. You’re
so busy these days? I’ve got to hear it from your brother. And when was the
last time you spoke to your mother!”
Scathach turned to the twins. “This is my grandmother, the legendary
Witch of Endor. Gran, this is Sophie and Josh. And you’ve met Nicholas
Flamel.”
“Yes, such a nice man.” She kept turning her head, her nostrils flaring.
“Twins,” she said finally.
Sophie and Josh looked at each other. How did she know? Did Nicholas
tell her?
There was something about the way the woman kept moving her head
that intrigued Josh. He tried to follow the direction of her gaze…and then he
realized why the old woman’s head kept moving left and right: she was
somehow seeing them through the mirrors. Automatically, he touched his
sister’s hand and nodded to the mirror. She glanced at it, back at the old
woman, then back at the mirror, and then she nodded at her brother, silently
agreeing with him.
Dora stepped up to Scathach, her head turned to one side as she stared
hard at a tall length of polished glass. “You’ve lost weight. Are you eating