Alight The Peril (18 page)

Yeah,
I said.

Thanks for telling me.

Of course. She wanted you to know.

You going to see Bradley again soon?

This weekend for sure. Tomorrow Aunt Dorothy is going to take me to the meadow and help me choose plants to use on him.

You’ll figure out how to help him; I know you will.

I sighed.
I’m afraid to imagine the alternative.

Then don’t.
Mason sounded so much more confident than I felt, and I loved him for that.
It will work.

That night, I listened for Mason’s soft knock on my window. It had been a difficult, emotional few days, and I wanted nothing more than to feel his comforting warmth. But he didn’t show, and sensing that he was occupied with his brother, I didn’t ask him to come.

When I slept, I entered the hypercosmic realm. I wasn’t sure if I did it deliberately or by accident, but when I opened my eyes and stood at the cove, Zane was already there.

“Nice night, eh, Pyxis?” His ice-blue eyes twinkled, and I knew he was happy to see me. A little shiver of anticipation shot through me.

I smiled and joined him near the bonfire ring, and we walked slowly along the water line.

“I want to learn more,” I said. “Teach me something.”

“What do you want to know?” His head was down, shadow partially hiding his face. We strolled as though neither of us had a thing in the world to worry about. If only I could bottle this moment and take it with me.

“I wouldn’t even know what to ask,” I said. “How about something that might help me protect my union?”

“Hm. How about if I show you how to recognize the threads of subconscious that belong to each of them? That way you could check on them just by entering the hypercosmic realm. Make sure the false Pyxis hasn’t influenced them.”

“You can
do
that? You’ve been holding out on me.” I smacked him lightly on the shoulder, and he laughed.

Slowing and then halting, he turned to me. He looked down at me, and whispered, “Here we go.”

Adrift in the cloud of gossamer strands, I reveled in the exhilaration of feeling them against my forearms and face. It was almost as if they were living creatures waving through an invisible sea.

“Okay, how do I know which one belongs to who?” I said.

“Close your eyes, and think on one of your union,” he said. I obeyed, picturing Mason. “Now think on what makes that person uniquely themselves. Not any one feature or quality, but an overall impression that defines that person.”

My mind crowded with impressions of Mason. . . . Sandy blonde hair, woody-spicy soap, t-shirt across his chest, deep bubbling laughter, the sound of his thoughts in my mind, Mason holding his brother’s hand when we were kids, walking to town for ice cream, the tree house in his backyard. . . . The impressions kept coming, and I allowed them to gather.

Open your eyes.
Zane lifted my hand and then let it go. My hand moved as if propelled by an invisible force, reaching toward one fine strand that somehow stood out from the rest.
It belongs to the one you hold in your mind.

How do I read whether he’s okay?
I asked, allowing the strand to trail across my palm.

Zane squeezed my other hand. He paused, waiting for my eyes to meet his before he answered.
Just as you would read him if he stood before you. Reach out with your mind.

I frowned. I got impressions and moods from Mason because he was always there in my mind. How was I supposed to do the same with a piece of sparkly dental floss?

Zane chuckled.
Reach out as you do just before you say something to him through your link.

Ah, I think I know what you mean.
There was a tiny preparatory moment before each link communication, almost as if my mind needed a split second to tune to the correct frequency.

I reached out, but stopped short of trying to make a connection. The strand vibrated against my skin, though there was no visible movement. The impression I received through the strand was calm, and unmistakably Mason.

“That’s his energetic fingerprint you’re feeling,” Zane said. “If you ever try this and what you get back feels off in any way, unlike what you’d expect the person to feel, you know something is wrong.”

I gazed down at the filament I held. “That’s remarkable. I take it this only works with someone I know fairly well?”

“That makes it easiest, yes. The less familiar you are with someone, the more effort it takes to reach the correct thread. And of course you may not find it at all.”

I let Mason’s thread slip from my hand. “Thank you for showing me.”

“My pleasure, Pyxis.”

I turned over on my bed, Zane’s resonant voice still in my ears.

I was grateful for a way to keep watch over my union, but didn’t believe it would be enough to keep them safe.

|| 20 ||

I STOOD WITH AUNT DOROTHY in the meadow, the sun warming the top of my head and my shoulders. The net Sophie and Ang had cast over the area glittered in my periphery like a mirage that vanished when you looked directly at it. I half expected to feel the soft, clingy brush of cobwebs when I reached through it to pluck an orange flower shaped like a miniature tulip, the blossom nodding on the end of its long stalk like a tiny fairy bell.

“Gather half a dozen of those,” my great-aunt said. She stooped over a large, yellow daisy-like bloom, brushing the petals with her fingertips and murmuring to herself. She pulled just the flower head and placed it in the basket that hung on her elbow.

We’d spent the morning prowling the meadow, Aunt Dorothy instructing me on the actions of the various flowers and plants. There were far more unique botanicals than I’d realized. She’d described well over fifty of them to me, but it wasn’t as simple as remembering one action per plant. Some of them had leaves and stems with entirely different properties than the blooms. My temples throbbed a bit with the strain of concentration, but I forced myself to focus. As she lectured, my great-aunt gathered blooms and plant parts she thought we could use to help Bradley, and I didn’t want to miss any important details.

Ang’s news about Toby kept nagging at me, too. I desperately wanted to believe it was the flu, or food poisoning, or some exotic strain of
anything
that could be cured by medical treatment. Anything but the dark presence that was sucking the life out of my brother. Was this part of what was building, what would take over Tapestry if we didn’t stop it before winter solstice? I didn’t have to check the date on my phone to know we had less than three weeks.

I dropped the orange flowers into her basket, and then leaned backward, kneading my knuckles into the small of my back. “Why are there only six influences, when there are so many possible combinations of plants?”

“The influences in the
pyxis
are suitable for nearly any possible scenario,” she said.

“What do you think would happen if we tried to make some new ones?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t even know how to go about that,” she said. “It’s not just a matter of soaking a bunch of flowers in water and storing the solution in a bottle.”

She beckoned me to a football-sized mound of short, tufted grass, and tore off a handful of blades.

“Those will do something for Brad?” I asked.

“I think they may be a good addition,” she said. “They’re said to fortify the solid organs, such as the spleen, liver, and pancreas.” She added the grass to the basket.

I peered into the basket at the rainbow array of botanicals we’d collected. “I never knew that such an apothecary existed right here in Tapestry,” I said. “Who taught you all of this?”

“The Pyxis in the union prior to mine, your great-great-aunt.”

“She was the first here, right? So who taught her?” I’d never probed her about the history of the Tapestry Lake pyramidal unions, but Aunt Dorothy also never seemed eager to talk about it.

“A man. . . . I’m not—” she faltered, and I stared at her, unable to mask my surprise. I’d never heard her so hesitant or unsure. “I wasn’t there, of course. It was much before my time. But a man came here when the first union formed.”

“Did he bring the
pyxis
?”

“Yes, that I do know.”

“I wonder if he was from one of the other unions,” I mused. I tried to imagine what it would have been like to travel around the world at the turn of the century, well over one hundred years ago. “Must have been some kind of ordeal to get here, if that was the case.”

“Indeed.” She frowned down at the basket on her arm, and I couldn’t read her expression. Confusion? Uncertainty? Maybe she was just absorbed in old memories and mysteries.

“So . . . you don’t know anything else about the man who brought the
pyxis
?” I ventured.

“I’m afraid I do not know much, my dear.” She was totally dodging me—I knew it.

She sighed, moved to a clump of plants a couple of feet away, and regarded them for a moment. “I believe we have got a good start here.” She patted the basket handle hanging on her arm, her usual brusque manner restored. “Let’s take them home, and I will show you how to make a tincture with them.”

Back at her house, we placed the botanical material we’d collected in a soup pot and added just enough water to cover it, then set the pot on the stove over gentle heat.

“Maybe I should just give Brad the tincture and see what it does,” I said.

Aunt Dorothy pursed her lips, considering. “I think you could use the influences to help drive it to the area of his body where his illness seems most concentrated.”

“If he seems like he’s in pain, should I stop?” My chest tightened as I remembered how he’d winced when I’d tried to probe the blackness inside him.

“That depends. If you sense the illness is receding, it may be worth a bit of pain. If you sense no progress, then best not to cause undue distress.”

I traced the square pattern on the linoleum floor with the toe of my sneaker. “What if Bradley isn’t the only one?” My voice sounded scratchy and tired.

“The only what?”

“You know, not the only one who’s sick because of this evil thing.”

“Well, then we will fight it just as we are with Bradley.”

That wasn’t particularly reassuring, but I took a little comfort in her firm voice and steely look.

We peered into the steaming pot of now-soggy petals, stems, and leaves. The kitchen filled with an aroma reminiscent of freshly cut grass and strong tea. My great-aunt pronounced the mixture sufficiently cooked, and we strained the liquid through a swatch of cheesecloth into a large glass measuring cup. We allowed the pale, dull green liquid to cool for a few minutes, and she produced a tiny glass bottle with a squeeze bulb dropper lid. She added a few drops of vodka to the bottle—a preservative, she said—and filled it the rest of the way with the green liquid. She stored the remaining liquid in a mason jar.

“You’ll drop some of this in a cup of water,” she instructed. “Best if you could get him to take it straight, but that may be difficult to do.”

I nodded, and slipped the dropper bottle into an inner pocket of my bag. She’d warned me not to expect miracles from this attempt to cure Bradley’s illness, but maybe it would work more quickly than she thought.

When I closed Aunt Dorothy’s front door behind me and started down the walkway, my stomach hollowed at the thought of going home to an empty house. Mom was in Danton with Bradley and Dad would still be at the café. I pulled my phone out of my bag and dialed Ang.

“Hey, are you at home?”

“Yeah, come on over.” She sounded uncharacteristically droopy.

“What’s wrong?”

“Toby. He’s not . . . ” She stopped when her voice wavered. “He isn’t doing any better.”

I thought of the glass vial tucked in my bag.

“I might be able to help him,” I said. I filled her in on Bradley, and my marathon apothecary apprentice session with my great-aunt. “I don’t know if Toby is being affected by the same kind of thing that’s in Brad, but when I go to the hospital, I’ll try to find out.”

“Oh, thank you, Corinne.” She was full-on crying now. Tears swelled in my throat, but I swallowed them back.

“Of course. I’ll do whatever I can,” I said.

“Did you hear about Hannah and Genevieve?” Ang said, still sniffing a little.

I snorted. “Oh no, what have Sophie’s minions done now?”

“No, nothing like that. I heard they’re sick. And it kind of sounds like what Toby has.”

“What? When did this happen?” The dread that seemed to have taken up permanent residence behind my breastbone ballooned and crept through me like a storm cloud.

“Like, yesterday.”

“Are they still in Tapestry, or did they get moved to Danton, too?” I asked.

“They’re still here, but I heard if they’re not showing any improvement by tomorrow, they’ll have to go, too.”

Maybe Aunt Dorothy should have given me a bigger bottle of tincture.

When I got to Ang’s house, we sat, side by side, with our backs resting against the foot of her bed. Her laptop rested across my thighs. I navigated to the pyramidal union website. I logged into the Pyxis message board and scanned the conversation threads. There were a few new messages under the one I’d started about Harriet. I bit my lips and read through them, hoping someone had come up with a way to control a false Pyxis, but the messages reported nothing new.

Hope seemed to sink down through me and disappear into the ground. I realized I’d been counting on the other unions helping us through the next couple of weeks and the solstice, or at least offering a plan, advice, anything. But we would be on our own. My stomach twisted.

I added a message about Bradley and his illness, not sure if this counted as a convergence “breach” or what.

I leaned my head back against the bed, eyes closed, thinking for a moment. Then I added a message to the end of the conversation.

Do you think there might be some way I could protect the rest of my union against Harriet’s influence? Like giving them a daily dose of the white influence or something?