Pyxis: The Discovery (Pyxis Series)

by K. C. Neal

  Her response came a few seconds later: Seriously? So weird! What did u put in those cakes anyway?

  Ang was onto something; I actually had put something different in the petits fours.

  My hands shook a little as I wrote back: u have to come over here asap!

  || 5 ||

  ANG AND I STARED at the wooden box in silence. The corners were worn and varnished, and dents and scratches betrayed rough handling. A swirly design with PYXIS engraved in old-fashioned, capital letters was embossed on the top. It looked harmless enough. But neither of us was especially eager to touch it.

  “So, this was your grandmother’s?” Ang said, squinting at the box.

  “Yeah, it was in a box with my name on it. There were two sheet-cake pans in there, too.”

  The last cake we’d baked together was for my dad’s birthday. Coconut. Tears blurred my vision, and I took a deep breath and dug in my hoodie pocket for a tissue. Ang laid a sympathetic hand on my shoulder while I dabbed at the corners of my eyes.

  “Okay, I can’t take the suspense,” she said after a moment. She clasped her hands together at her chest. “Open it!”

  I stepped forward and tipped back the lid. Six glass bottles filled the interior, each containing a deeply pigmented liquid. The age-clouded glass bottles had round, bulbous bases with skinny necks about an inch long, and snug-fitting glass stoppers were lodged in the tops. I’d discovered that the necks were designed to dispense only a drop of liquid at a time. The liquid was viscous, thicker than water but not quite as thick as pancake syrup.

  “Ohh,” Ang whispered, as if the box held beautiful jewels. She stepped forward for a closer look.

  I pulled out two bottles, one that contained liquid so inky-blue it was almost black, and one filled with a cloudy, opaque, yellow-orange solution the color of pollen. I set them on the counter, and we regarded them for a couple of seconds.

  “I used these two to color the frosting. I just assumed they were homemade food dyes because they were with the cake pans.” I hesitated. That vague crawly feeling slithered over my scalp. “But I don’t remember my grandmother ever using them. I helped her bake all the time, and I’m sure we used food colorings. But not these ones.”

  I looked over at Ang. Her eyes were so wide I could see the whites all the way around her green irises.

  “Maybe … maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to use these,” I said.

  “What do you think that word on the box means? Pyxis?”

  “I don’t know. Let me get my laptop.” I hurried to the other end of the basement and into my room.

  Ang made space on the counter, and I set my laptop next to the wooden box, powered it up, and did a search. “Um … it’s the name of some constellation.”

  Ang frowned.

  I went back to the search page and clicked a different link.

  “Oh wait!” I said excitedly. “Another definition says it was an ancient Greek word for a box used to hold medicine.”

  “Huh,” Ang said. “You think those are medicines?”

  I shrugged.

  I was tempted to ask my mom about the bottles. As a nurse, she might know something about what they were. But I was afraid she’d get too curious or want to take the box away. Or get really mad that I put mysterious substances into my petits fours. Mom was working late at the clinic in Danton, anyway. I probably wouldn’t see her until after my Saturday shift.

  “I wish Grandma Doris was here. I bet she’d be able to tell us everything.”

  My grandmother had passed away just six months before. She was no spring chicken, but she’d been in excellent health for her age, and her mind was sharp as a paring knife. The official cause of her death was a stroke. I knew things like that could happen suddenly to old people, but it just didn’t seem right that I could have been baking peach pies with her on Sunday afternoon, and Monday morning, she was gone.

  “Your Great Aunt Dorothy wouldn’t be any help, right?” Ang asked.

  I shook my head. “Not if she’s in the same condition she was in last time I saw her. She didn’t even know we were there.”

  When Grandma Doris had her stroke, Dorothy had to be hospitalized, too. The doctors thought she’d probably suffered a stroke, like my grandmother. Maybe it was one of those weird twin things. Whatever it was, Dorothy never recovered, and my dad moved her into a retirement home in Danton.

  “Well, maybe something will come to you. I gotta get the car back home, but I’ll text you later.” Ang gave me a hug and then left.

  I sat down on the sofa with my laptop and did a search on my grandmother’s name. One of the first links was the official website for the town of Tapestry. It listed my grandmother as a founding member of the Tapestry Lake Conservation Society. I idly clicked some of the links for tourist information and the history of the town, looking for anything more about her or her twin sister.

  When I got to a section about the McClintock murders in 1915, I tried to force my eyes past it, but curiosity got the best of me.

  The year 1915 is a dark one in Tapestry’s past. On December 21st, the night of the Winter Solstice, James McClintock, his wife Mary, and their four young children, Charles, Patrick, Rose, and Paul, were murdered in their home. The killer was never caught.

  What the website didn’t say, but what every local knew, was that the massacre wasn’t the only memorable thing that happened in Tapestry in 1915. The local bank was robbed. Two churches burned down and a couple of people died in the fires. And a mysterious, typhoid-like illness killed several young children. The McClintock murders were like the grand finale to a string of horrible events that year.

  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.”