Pyxis: The Discovery (Pyxis Series) (4 page)

I shivered and clicked back to the website’s home page. A small ad for Lakeside Natural Health caught my eye: “Heal though the power of nature.”

I looked up at the
pyxis
box. I had an idea.

|| 6 ||

THE NEXT DAY WAS Saturday, and I didn’t have to work at the coffee shop until early afternoon. Plenty of time to stop in at Lakeside Natural Health, the shop I’d seen advertised on Tapestry’s website. It occupied a space on the second floor of a run-down office building on Main Street, a few blocks from the café. I’d passed the building a million times, but never noticed the tiny sign for Lakeside Natural Health.

A miniature wind chime tied to the door handle announced my entry. It was a small, windowless room, lit only by a few old-fashioned table lamps and half a dozen pillar candles. Shelving covered every foot of wall space, most of it displaying row upon row of glass jars full of powder or dried leaves or twigs. A couple of shelves held amber dropper bottles filled with liquid. An earthy, musty, herblike aroma permeated the room and made me want to rub my nose.
Gross.
I couldn’t imagine smelling that all day long.

At the back of the room sat an antique-looking cash register on a small, drop-leaf table that had seen better days. Just as I was wondering if anyone was manning the shop, the curtains behind the cash register parted. For a moment, I could see a person only in profile because the track lighting in the room beyond was much brighter than the lamps and candles in the shop. My dream of the fog flashed through my mind, and my pulse gave an uneasy lurch.

“Hello, there. Can I help you?” the person—a woman—said as she let the curtains fall back into place. I blinked a couple of times, trying to regain sight in the dark room.

“Are you the, um, herbalist?” I asked.

“Yes. Harriet Jensen. Have we met before?” I guessed she was around my parents’ age, maybe a little older. A short bob of mostly gray hair framed her lined face. She was as tall as my dad, and her posture was military-straight. She seemed fit for a woman her age. She searched my face, her head jutted forward a little, and I realized her eyes were a strange, pale green. I shivered involuntarily.

“I don’t think so,” I said. I thought I would have remembered those eyes.

“Oh. You remind me of someone. Do I know your parents, perhaps?”

“My dad owns the Rainbow Café. David Finley?”

“Of course! That means your grandmother is Doris Finley.” Her creepy eyes widened, and she just stared at me for a second, lips parted.

“Was. She died a few months ago, actually.” I fidgeted with the strap of my bag.

“Yes, I heard. So sorry.” Her eyes brightened a bit, which made me think she wasn’t sorry at all.

She moved toward me and lifted her hand, and I took a step back. She gestured to the two chairs at the drop-leaf table without taking her eyes from mine. I fought the urge to turn and book it out of there.

“Why don’t we sit, and you can tell me what I can do for you?”

I perched on the edge of the chair, dug in my bag, and pulled out two plastic containers, the little ones I put salad dressing in for lunches at school. Each held about a teaspoon of liquid, one from the dark blue
pyxis
bottle, and one from the yellow. I set them on the table.

“I was wondering if maybe you could tell me what these are, and what they’re, like, supposed to do.”

I twirled a strand of hair around my index finger as I watched Harriet reach for the blue one. She opened the container, peered into it, and took a quick whiff of the liquid. Then she slammed the lid back on.

“Where did you get these?” she demanded. I jumped at the sudden sharpness in her voice.

“Why? What are they?”

Harriet’s hand shot forward and closed around my wrist. Her irises were not just pale green, I realized, but milky, like a snake’s eyes. My heart lurched, and I pulled against her grip, but her grasp tightened, and I could feel her nails digging into the underside of my wrist. Then, just as suddenly as she’d grabbed me, she let go.

“These are—” She clamped her lips together. She folded her hands in her lap and stretched her mouth into the shape of a smile. “Are there more? Others?”

Her demeanor changed so rapidly, I almost wondered if I had imagined her wild-eyed intensity from a moment before. Out of the corner of my eye, I gauged the distance from my chair to the doorway. But I really needed information. I rubbed my wrist and tried to focus.

“This is all I have,” I lied. “Are they some kind of medicine?”

“Not of the sort you’re used to, Corinne Finley.” she said. Her face shifted to a mask of concern and her fingers twitched in her lap. “They could be dangerous. Perhaps—perhaps you should leave them with me. I can consult my books. Are you
very sure
there are no more?”

“
Very sure
,” I said.

Before she could react, I reached out and swept the containers into my bag. I’d had enough. She obviously wasn’t going to tell me anything, and every muscle in my body was pinging with the urge to jump up and run.

She tried to grab my arm again, but I scooted out of her reach. I gave her a narrow-eyed glare.

“If you think of anything you’d like to tell me,” I said, “I’ll be at the café.”

I raced down the two flights of stairs and burst out onto the sidewalk, panting, my heart pounding in my ears, and I walked as fast as I could toward the café. I looked over my shoulder every few steps, half expecting Harriet to come flying after me, but I only saw a few people carrying shopping bags and a family of four with ice cream cones.

By the time I reached the café, part of me wondered if I’d imagined the last twenty minutes. I walked straight back to the employee bathroom, where I locked the door and stared at my reflection in the mirror.

I looked like a wild-eyed a mess. I wet my fingers and combed them through my hair, and then took a deep breath. I examined my arm and the crescent-moon indentations from Harriet’s nails.

I hadn’t told her my name, but she knew it. Normally, that wouldn’t have creeped me out too much. I mean, Tapestry wasn’t that big, and some of the families had been here for three, four, or even five generations. But after what just happened, I couldn’t help freaking out a little. Harriet had practically accused me of stealing the bottles, as though they belonged to her.

I checked the clock on my phone. I only had five minutes until my shift started. I opened the bathroom door and nearly collided with Angeline.

She jumped back a little and started to smile when she realized it was me, then took a good look at my face. “Oh my God, Corinne, what’s wrong?”

|| 7 ||

IN BETWEEN CUSTOMERS, I told Angeline about my run-in with Harriet Jensen. She was almost as creeped out as I was, which made me feel a little less like I was going crazy. I fidgeted through my entire shift. If Harriet came into the coffee shop, it wasn’t like she could do anything to me—the place was busy, and my dad was right next door in the café—but my shoulders tensed every time the bell on the door clanged.

I had an almost overwhelming impulse to run home and hide the
pyxis
. I’d stuck it in a cupboard in the basement kitchen, but if someone got into our house and started poking around, it probably wasn’t concealed well enough.

When our shift ended, Ang and I grabbed our bags and walked out together.

“Come with me while I get my stuff?” she asked.

I hesitated. I was torn between my desire to make sure the
pyxis
was okay immediately, even before Ang came over to spend the night, and my fear that Harriet might show up while I was home alone.

“You can just borrow some of my clothes,” I said. “I think you left your blue hoodie and black sweats there last time anyway.”

“Okay,” she said. “I’m just going to call my mom and tell her I’m staying with you tonight.”

While Ang was on the phone, I tried to come up with a plan. I definitely needed to find a better hiding place. And keep all the doors locked. Part of me wanted to tell my dad what happened with Harriet, but I felt like it would all sound completely irrational. Plus, that would mean telling him about the
pyxis
, and … well, I didn’t know what I’d say about the bottles of colored liquids. I didn’t understand what they were or why my grandmother had left them to me. I was pretty sure that trying to describe anything to do with the
pyxis
or Harriet Jensen would make me sound crazy. And maybe I
was
overreacting. Then I’d feel even more stupid for bringing it up.

When we got to my house, no one else was home. My parents were both at work, and Bradley was either working at the bagel shop or off somewhere with his friends. We took our bags down to my room, then went to get the
pyxis
.

“I’m not really sure what to do with it,” I said. I brushed my fingers over the top of the box, tracing the grain of the wood. “But I want to make sure no one can find it.”

“Can we look at the bottles again?” Ang said. Her eyes shone bright with curiosity, but she kept her hands at her sides.

I tipped the lid back and noticed for the first time that the wood inside the lid didn’t look the same as the wood on the inside of the rest of the box. I looked closer. The inner lid had what looked like a thin panel over it. There was a small notch in panel, about an inch long. I stuck my fingernail in the notch and pushed back. The panel slid a quarter of an inch, with tension. Then the panel fell from the lid, and with it fell a folded piece of old, waxy-looking paper.

Ang gasped, and my pulse raced.

“You found a secret compartment!”

“Yeah,” I breathed. I reached for the piece of paper and carefully smoothed the creases so I could lay it flat. I scanned the page. “What the…?”

“Tapestry Lake Convergence” looped across the top in old fashioned-looking script. And under that were three lists of names.

Goosebumps crawled down my arms. I hardly knew where to begin. I couldn’t tear my eyes from the piece of paper.

“Corinne?” When I didn’t respond, Ang came around to my side and peered down at the sheet. “Oh my God, that’s your name. And Mason’s! And
mine
! What is this thing? What the heck is a ‘pyramidal union’?”

Tapestry Lake Convergence

Pyramidal union formed 1915

P: Ruth Jensen

S: Daniel Smith

G: Catherine Abel

G: Louise Sinclair

Pyramidal union formed 1951

P: Doris Conner

S: Harold Sykes

G: Dorothy Conner

G: Evelyn Wellington

Pyramidal union formed

P:
Harriet Jensen
Corinne Finley

S: Mason Flint

G: Angeline Belskaia

G:

“That’s Grandma Doris and Aunt Dorothy in the nineteen fifty-three list,” I said. I couldn’t seem to catch my breath. “And Ruth Jensen was my great-grandmother.”

“Do you have any idea what any of this means?”

I shook my head and frowned at the list.

Had Grandma Doris ever mentioned a convergence or a pyramidal union? It sounded like something important. I wracked my brain. Pyramidal union might be some kind of club, or … I didn’t even know what. This piece of paper said I was part of it. Me, Ang, Mason, and possibly someone else whose name would go under Angeline’s.

Wait. One name had two heavy lines through it. “Oh my God, Ang. You see that? In front of my name.
Harriet
.”

Ang green eyes were huge and round. “I am so freaked out right now, I can’t even tell you,” she said. She bit at her pinkie nail.

My pulse thudded in my head. I had a horrible feeling this meant my paranoia about Harriet wasn’t unfounded.

“Jensen was my great-grandmother’s maiden name, so when she joined this—whatever—it was before she was married. Same with Grandma Doris and Aunt Dorothy. I don’t know if that means anything.”

“I don’t think they
joined
anything,” Ang said. She squinted and drew back a little, putting some distance between herself and the piece of paper.

“What do you mean?”

She gestured at the list in my hand. “You and Mason and I didn’t
join
any pyramidal union or whatever, did we? But there we are. Whoever wrote this thinks we’re part of one. For all we know, the other people on that thing didn’t know, either. Or maybe they didn’t have a choice.”

“This is so freaking weird.”

“Yeah.” Ang folded her arms around herself in a sort of hug. “What do you think we should do?”

“Maybe see if we can find anything online? We could at least try to figure out what a pyramidal union is.”

She nodded, and I handed her the piece of paper before going to get my laptop. Having something to do made me feel a little more calm. Not much, but a little.

|| 8 ||

WE SPENT THE REST of the afternoon trying to figure out what “convergence,” “pyramidal union,” and the letters “P S G G” meant. One website came up when we searched “pyramidal union” that seemed promising because it had a picture of a box that was sort of similar to my
pyxis
. It also had an animation with blobs of colors that slowly swirled and melded, kind of like wax in a lava lamp. But we couldn’t get past the home page because it needed a password or some other type of virtual secret handshake. Aside from some generic definitions of the other terms, we didn’t find much, and nothing that explained the four letters.

After a few hours, we gave up.

Ang sighed and flopped across my bed. We’d moved from the TV room to my room in case anyone came downstairs. We didn’t want to have the
pyxis
sitting out where anyone could see it or have to answer any questions about what we were doing.

I suddenly wished Mason was there. He was kind of an internet genius. He could probably figure out how to get into the website with the color blobs.

“Hey,” I said, suddenly remembering Mason’s email. “Mason’s going to be back soon. Do you think we should show him the list?”