Escape to Witch Mountain

Escape to Witch Mountain is a science fiction novel written by Alexander H. Key in 1968. It was adapted into a film of the same name by Walt Disney Productions in 1975, directed by John Hough. A remake directed by Peter Rader was released in 1995. Race to Witch Mountain, a new telling directed by Andy Fickman, opened theatrically March 13, 2009.

The novel, written by Alexander Key, is about two orphans, Tony and Tia, who have paranormal abilities. Tony possesses the ability of telekinesis, which he can access most readily through playing music, particularly his harmonica. Tia's strengths include the ability to unlock any door by touch and communicate with animals. Both siblings can communicate via ultrasonic speech audible only to each other; but Tia cannot speak normally and is regarded as strange because of this. It is later revealed that Tia is not unusual in this respect, but Tony is; few of their kind have the ability to speak out loud. After their foster guardian, Mrs. Malone, dies, they are placed by social services in a juvenile detention home under grim, unwholesome conditions, where Tia befriends a black cat, Winkie.

Both have suppressed memories of their past, but discover a clue in an old road map hidden along with a cache of money in Tia's "star box," a leather purse-like box with a double-star design on it. In a chance encounter with a nun who is an art teacher, the nun reveals that she once received a letter on stationery with an identical design. The writer, a Blue Ridge Mountains resident with "a name like Caroway, or Garroway, or Hideaway" sought information on students who had "unusual aptitudes." When a man claiming to be the brother of their deceased father shows up at the detention center to take custody of them, they instinctively know he is not their uncle and has ulterior motives. Unfortunately, when they attempt to reach the nun they find that she has died.

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