by K. C. Neal
“Great!” In my haste to get to my room, I spoke with way more enthusiasm than my norm. I reined it in a little. “I’ll come up to help you later.”
I skipped down the stairs two at a time, tossed the key into my dad’s desk drawer, and locked myself in my room. I realized that my hand was still clamped around Grandma Doris’s letter, and I dropped it like a hot cookie sheet. The pages drifted to the floor. I left them there and sat on my bed with my back against the wall and my knees drawn up.
My phone buzzed in my pocket, a text from Mason.
I’ll come by around 9 tonight, ok?
I wrote back: I’ll be here. C u then.
Thank God he was coming back. I wasn’t sure how much time alone with my thoughts I could handle. I suddenly remembered Ang, and I hit her speed dial on my phone. I told her about Mr. Sykes, and I read her the letter. I asked her to come by when she could, but she was helping her mom at church, so she didn’t think she’d make it over.
I shoved my earbuds in, and, hoping that something upbeat would make my life feel less bizarre, flipped to my 80s mix. The opening bass line to “Thriller” started bumping. I hit skip. A song about ghosts or zombies wasn’t really what I needed at the moment. Social Distortion? Better.
I pulled a strand of hair in front of my face and examined it for split ends. More than anything, I wished I’d never discovered the pyxis. Maybe if it’d gotten lost, I wouldn’t have to worry about any of this. But then there were still the dreams.
I shuddered. My life was overloaded with way too much freakiness at the moment.
After about an hour of staring at my hair and listening to 80s music, I felt a little more calm. I crawled to the edge of the bed and grabbed the letter from my dresser. Maybe I’d misread it and overreacted.
I read through it again, trying to be impartial. I pretended I was a psychiatrist evaluating the letter so I could give my professional opinion about whether the writer was a nutcase or not. It sounded crazy, no doubt about that, but there were a few things I just couldn’t ignore. Mason had muttered in his sleep last night. He had said, “shield.” I couldn’t avoid it any longer. There, in my grandmother’s P.S.: We knew early on that Mason would be your Shield …
I reread the part about the dreams. A dream had led us to her house, where Mr. Sykes had seen me and subsequently given me this letter. His name was on the list. It all seemed a little too much to explain away as coincidence.
The part that really freaked me out, though, besides the fact that Aunt Dorothy was supposed to be helping me with something and obviously couldn’t, was the part about me being the Pyxis. Was it a typo? The pyxis was a box. It may not have medicine in it, like the internet said, but Ang and I never read anything about pyxis being a person.
Mason was right. I had to see if I could get anything out of Aunt Dorothy. I didn’t have much hope that the white liquid would be the answer, but it was worth a try. Even if it didn’t work, maybe I could catch her in a moment of clarity and get her to tell me something useful, preferably that this was all an elaborate joke.
I removed my earbuds and plodded upstairs to help Mom. At the top of the stairs, I pasted on what I hoped looked like my everything-is-fine face. Worry had my stomach roiling like a cement truck barrel, but I couldn’t even imagine trying to explain any of it to my mom.
During the week, we usually ate leftovers from the café for dinner. But on Saturdays, the café closed at five o’clock and didn’t serve dinner, so Mom always started cooking, and Dad usually made it home early enough to pitch in.
I chopped veggies for a green salad while Mom cubed a small pile of red potatoes and quizzed me from the driver’s manual. In the warmth of the kitchen, chopping produce with my mom like any Saturday afternoon, I could almost imagine life was normal. She opened the oven to check on the pork chops, and the wafting aroma reminded me I hadn’t eaten since the bowl of cereal this morning. My stomach gurgled in anticipation.
It was just me, Mom, and Dad for dinner since Bradley was working. As we ate and talked about mundane things, I watched my parents, wondering if they knew anything about the pyxis. I doubted it. Otherwise, they’d probably know that they’d need to fill me on what the hell it was.
After dinner, I busied myself in my room, reorganizing the shoes at the bottom of my closet, stowing clean laundry in my dresser, and hanging up the clothes strewn across my bed. I turned my 80s mix back on and jumped around, dancing, trying to recapture what it felt like when I was just Corinne, resident of Tapestry and wicked-awesome pastry chef, instead of whatever my grandmother’s letter claimed.
When I’d finished all the straightening and cleaning I could do, I flopped across my bed on my belly and buried my face in my folded arms. I replayed the night of the Winter Solstice Festival, shivering on the corner of Main and Wild Rose with Mason. The memory of his kiss still sent sparks through my chest, and I could still remember how I’d wanted that moment to stretch on and on.
A knock at my door just about gave me a heart attack. I sprang to my feet, my heart racing a little, and opened the door.
“Hey.” Mason was wearing dark-wash jeans and a black hoodie with a crackled, abstract design silkscreened across the font. I wanted to reach out and trace the c-shaped strand of hair curling over his forehead. I felt my face flush a little and hoped he didn’t notice.
“Hey, come on in.” I opened the door wider. I glanced around the room quickly to make sure I hadn’t left out anything awkward or embarrassing. “My mom didn’t keep you too long, did she?”
“Nah, we just talked a minute. I don’t mind,” he said, and he gave me a half smile.
I plopped back on my bed and pulled my knees up to my chest. He sank into the plush purple chair next to my dresser.
His face mirrored how drained I felt. I took a deep breath.
“So,” I said. “How’s it feel to be a shield or whatever?”
He snorted. “I have no idea. I don’t feel any different. Shouldn’t I at least get a cool costume or something? I totally dig capes.”
I laughed. “Yeah, you need some tights, too.”
“You feel any different?”
“Not really.” I wrinkled my nose. “Just more stressed about the whole thing.”
“Do you think Mr. Sykes knows anything?”
I shrugged. “Maybe. Might be worth a shot, seeing as how we don’t have a lot of other places to turn. We’ll have to be careful, though.”
He stood, pulled the letter off my dresser, and then returned to the chair and rested his elbows on his knees. As he read it again, his sandy hair fell across his forehead, shadowing his eyes. I knew I should just get over it already, but it was still hard to believe how different he looked. He’d never really had a girlfriend, but I suspected that plenty of girls would be taking notice of him this summer. Sophie seemed occupied with Andy—thank God—but I was sure it wouldn’t be long before somebody showed interest. The thought sent a faint stab of displeasure though my chest.
We spent the next hour dissecting the letter and speculating about how we could have misunderstood any of it. He volunteered to talk to Mr. Sykes again tomorrow. I wouldn’t have time because I had to practice driving, work a four-hour shift at the coffee shop, be home for family dinner, and finish all my weekend homework. I envied Mason’s freedom. He didn’t have to worry about going to school, checking in with his parents, or making curfews.
Mason pulled his phone from his pocket to check a text. “Want to go to the cove with Jesse and Garrett?” he asked.
“Yeah, sure. I’ll text Ang to see if she can meet us.”
Ang texted me back: Don’t think I can make it. Mom and i r baking for church tomorrow.
I suddenly wanted to back out. The thought of going to the cove with Mason and without Ang felt strange. But I’d sound like a dork if I tried to get out of it now.
Mason and I went upstairs to wait for our ride. A few minutes later, Jesse and Garrett pulled up in front of the house in Garrett’s
old Ford extended-cab. Mason and I piled in to the sound of throbbing hip hop. The stereo volume eliminated the possibility of conversation, so I just flicked a wave at the front seat. Garrett gave me a salute in the rearview mirror.
You never knew what music you’d get when you rode with Garrett. He had the broadest musical taste I’d ever encountered in a single individual, which was probably why he was a good fit for the internet radio show. Mason was mostly in charge of the internet and technical stuff, so he wasn’t anywhere near the musical knowledge the other two guys had.
It was a pretty small crowd at the cove, especially for a Saturday night that time of year. Mostly juniors and seniors were there, and a lot of the kids were drinking beer. That wasn’t really my scene, so after a few minutes of hovering around the bonfire with the guys, I drifted back to the path leading to the meadow. The smell of cold, moist soil, pine trees, and sweet grass was like a balm on my stressed brain, and I inhaled deeply a couple of times to soak it in.
When I bent to collect a few pinecones to toss into the fire later, I caught an electric blue flash out of the corner of my eye. I looked up at the sky just as a streak of green light billowed across the stars, followed by an orange glow that pulsed a couple of times before it disappeared.
“Nice,” I murmured, my head tilted back so I could take in the light show. A purple glimmer undulated just above the tree line, and I smiled. Purple was my lucky color, and I was two for two this year: two visits to the cove and two twilight rainbow sightings.
At the far edge of the meadow, I caught a faint white glow. It actually looked like a pulsating cloud of millions of tiny lights. I frowned. That was definitely not part of the twilight rainbow phenomenon. The cloud seemed to bulge out toward me, and my heart thumped uneasily. I blinked hard a couple of times.
Then I smelled it. The spoiled meat, burned rubber scent from my nightmares.
All the air whooshed out of my lungs, I stumbled back a couple of steps, the pinecones falling from my hands. This couldn’t be happening. I sniffed the air again, hoping it was just my imagination. But it was strong enough now to make my eyes water.
I turned to run back to the beach and nearly took Mason out, crashing hard into his chest.
|| 18 ||
“OH MY GOD, DO you smell that?” The words tumbled from me, and my voice shook with panic. I grabbed his arm. “That’s how the fog smells in my dreams. I think it’s coming from over there.” I pointed to the pulsating glow across the meadow.
“Yeah, I smell it,” he said, looking past me to the meadow. He started guiding me back toward the bonfire. “I think it’s starting to dissipate. But we better get out of here.”
“What is it, Mason? How could that smell be here? What’s going on?” I was practically begging him to answer. My heart raced, and I couldn’t seem to catch my breath. Mason moved faster, towing me by the hand until we reached the edge of the tree line. He stopped just outside the circle of light created by the bonfire.
“Corinne, it’s okay,” he said, holding me firmly by the shoulders. I turned to look back toward the meadow, certain I would see a dirty black cloud billowing toward us. He pulled me around to face him again. “There’s nothing coming after us. We’re okay. Just take a couple of deep breaths.”
I nodded and obeyed. “How did you know to come? Did you smell it from the beach?” I asked once I felt a little calmer.
“No. I just got worried when I couldn’t find you after a while,” he said, but his eyes darted to the side, and I suspected there was something he wasn’t telling me.
“What’s happening, Mason?” I whispered.
“I don’t know. But I don’t think we’re in real danger.” I couldn’t help silently tacking yet onto the end of his statement.
“Okay, if you say so,” I said, not trying to hide the doubt in my voice. I looked back at the meadow. The cloud of pinpoint lights was brighter than before, but it no longer appeared to be bulging toward me. The air smelled fresh again, and my pulse began to slow. I closed my eyes and pressed my fingertips to my eyelids. “God, I feel like I’m losing it.”
We rejoined the group around the bonfire, and Mason didn’t leave my side the rest of the night.
When Garrett and Jesse dropped us off at my house just before midnight, Mason silently followed me inside and downstairs. We listened to music, flipped through some of the magazines piled under my desk, and talked about everything except what had happened in the meadow. Eventually, exhausted from all the craziness of the day, I stretched out on the bed and let my eyelids slide shut. Mason seemed to be doing the same in the purple chair. I awoke briefly sometime in the night and realized he’d turned off the light and stretched out next to me on the bed.
I somehow knew the nightmares wouldn’t bother me as long as Mason was there.The next morning, Mason went out the basement door before anybody else was up. Not that we really needed to sneak around, but it just seemed easier.
After breakfast, Mom sat in the passenger seat while I drove her Subaru around Tapestry to practice complete stops and parallel parking. We got on the highway that led out of town so I could do some freeway driving. The first part of the highway twisted through the mountains. It was the most dangerous part of the road between Tapestry and Danton, especially in winter. Every year, there was at least one serious accident along that stretch. I wasn’t worried, though, with winter long past.
“Are you ready for the written test?” Mom asked.
To her credit, she wasn’t clutching the armrests in a death grip. Dad freaked out when I was driving because I almost missed a stop sign once. Like anything would have happened. The speed limit around Tapestry was twenty-five miles per hour, and there hadn’t been any cars within half a mile of us anyway. Ever since then, he’d just sit there and cringe whenever I was behind the wheel.
“Yeah, I think I’ll pass,” I said. “I’m going to study the book a little more tonight.”
“Driving is a really big responsibility, Corinne.” Uh oh, here came the lecture. “It’s not just about your safety. It’s also about all the other people on the road you could hurt if you’re not paying attention.”
It was annoying, but I knew she had to say these things. It was like her duty as the mother of a teenager.
“I know, Mom,” I said. “I promise I’ll never text or play music too loud or anything while I’m driving. I’ll be careful.”
I was surprised that she left it at that.
“Do you know Harriet Jensen?” I asked suddenly. I watched my mom’s reaction out of the corner of my eyes.
“I know who she is. She has some kind of natural medicine store, I think.”
“Do you know if she knew Grandma? Or Aunt Dorothy?”
“I don’t know how well they were acquainted, but Harriet is a distant relative of theirs. And ours, too, obviously.”
It was all I could do to keep the car between the lines. I curled my hands tightly around the steering wheel and tried to ignore the sickening lurch in my gut.
“Oh, really?” I managed.
“Her last name’s Jensen. Same as your great-grandmother. I think she’s Ruth’s cousin’s granddaughter. Or something like that. Why the sudden interest in Harriet?”
How did I not notice the same last names? My mind raced. “I, uh, just heard her name and thought she sounded like an interesting character. You know, because of the natural medicine thing and all.”
As soon as we got home, I texted the news to Mason and Angeline. None of us knew what it meant, but enough had happened over the past few weeks that I knew I couldn’t pretend it meant nothing.
I passed the afternoon checking assignments off my homework list, proud that I could set aside all the mysteries swirling through my brain for a few hours.
When Mom, Dad, and I sat down to our Sunday family dinner later that evening—lasagna again, yum—Bradley still hadn’t shown. I passed the basket of garlic toast to my dad, and the front door slammed. Slightly out of breath, Bradley
slid into his chair.
“Sorry about that,” he said, and flashed his ever-so-charming smile.
My brother and I looked a lot alike—very dark brown hair, light olive skin, blue eyes, slim frame—but he took more after my dad, personality-wise. My dad was a people person, and his charisma had as much to do with the café’s success as his food. Our kitchen skills seemed to be one of the only things my dad and I had in common. In other ways, I took more after my mom, who was a lot more reserved. My mom didn’t have too many friends. But then, she worked really long hours and had that awful commute between Tapestry and Danton, so it probably wasn’t entirely her fault she didn’t have more of a social life.
“How’d Grandma’s house look?” Dad asked me.
“Everything seemed okay to me,” I answered. “Hey, do you happen to know Harold Sykes, an old guy who lives around there?”
My dad looked toward the ceiling, chewing and thinking. “I do. I haven’t really talked to him in years. I know he didn’t make it to the funeral because he was in Danton for some health issue. He and your grandma knew each other from way back when they were young.”
“How’d they know each other?” I asked, hoping for some useful information.
“Back in those days, Tapestry was so small that everybody knew each other pretty well,” he said. Well, that didn’t help.
After dinner, I read through the driver’s manual one more time and took a practice test on the DMV website. I was confident, but I didn’t want to take any chances. If I didn’t pass the test, I’d have to make another appointment and get Bradley to take me to Danton again.
I only missed two on the practice test, so I figured I was prepared. Poor Ang had to do the driving part twice last fall. She’d been so nervous the first time that she forgot to use her turn signal, and then later, she scraped a curb in a parking lot.
Right before I went to bed, Mason texted me:
Sykes wasn’t home when I went by. Think I should stay home tonight. Will u be ok?