by K. C. Neal
The sea of faintly glowing threads surrounded me, waved gently past me. My feet swung through empty space. It wasn’t the strands moving, it was me. I kept my head down, my eyes on my arms folded across my middle, to stave off vertigo.
When the sensation of movement ceased, I raised my eyes, and one of the threads seemed to beckon to me. I grasped it with feather-light pressure and “read” it, the way Zane had taught me. No doubt it belonged to Angeline. Relieved to find she was still safe from Harriet’s influence, I let it slip away and returned my focus inward.
I knew it would be easy to find Mason’s thread of subconscious. I’d save it ‘til last. I nearly grimaced when I thought of trying to locate Sophie’s, but then remembered our last conversation, the raw anger and sadness on her face, the vulnerability and trust it cost her to cry in front of me, and ultimately the steel core of determination when she pushed the heavy past aside. I hoped I could do the same. I understood why she’d treated me the way she had. But the sting of her cruelty over the years would take time to fade. If it ever did.
I tried to see her behavior in a new way, to understand from her point of view. She punished me because she needed someone to blame for her pain. She acted tough because she didn’t want anyone to mess with her. It felt like Brad was being disloyal to me, but it was no wonder, really, that my brother was drawn to her. That lots of guys were. Sure, she could be scary and downright horrible, but I had to admit, she possessed a survivor’s strength and I-will-not-be-messed-with attitude that had its own undeniable magnetism.
A strand curled itself around my forearm with its delicate, electric touch, and it lifted me from my reverie. I’d found it. Sophie’s thread of subconscious. I gaped down at it. A thread had never reached out to me this way, as if it were a living tendril that knew me and sought me out. I unwrapped it from my arm with a gentle tug, and it wove itself over my palm and around my fingers. A faint pulse of energy vibrated against my skin. I knew without reading it that Sophie was safe, but for some reason I didn’t want to let it go.
I drifted with Sophie for . . . I wasn’t sure how long. Time was somewhat meaningless here because nothing changed to mark its passage. Even my body was too light and hollow, a borrowed shell that wasn’t quite mine. Almost as if I could spirit myself out of it, and glide with the threads on the invisible current that carried them.
I blinked hard.
This was what Zane had warned me about, the temptation of losing yourself here. My pulse lurched when I realized how easily I could have stayed, drifting. I looked down. Sophie’s thread was already untangling itself from my hand.
I found and checked Mason’s thread quickly, then brought myself back to the cove and solid ground. I dropped my arms to my sides and filled my lungs with cool night air. Some of Sophie’s determination filled me, fortifying my body and my mind. I imagined Bradley, weak and pale in Danton, and my friends, defenseless against a dark force we didn’t fully understand. My fingernails dug into my palms. I’d had enough.
I was tired of the anxious suspense of Harriet’s inevitable next attack. No more waiting. It was time to find her.
|| 21 ||
I SPENT THE REST of the night searching for Harriet’s thread. I focused with feverish intensity on the image of her face in my mind, her pale green eyes and rasping, chill-inducing laugh. The smell of her apothecary shop. Surely, if Zane had warned me to be careful in the sea of strands, that meant they were prone to damage of some sort. I wanted to find Harriet’s and then. . . . What? Pull it until it stretched and broke free? Well, sure. Why not?
But my efforts yielded nothing. My feet failed to leave the sand. Finally, out of frustration, I woke up. Why hadn’t it worked?
A question began somewhere deep in my mind, and rose slowly, like a bubble released from the seafloor.
“Oh, duh!” I slapped my forehead. If we could just go into the hypercosmic realm and yank threads, why hadn’t Harriet done that to us already? Clearly there was some piece of this I was missing. I needed to talk to Zane. And if for some reason I couldn’t confront her in the hypercosmic realm, I’d just have to march down Main Street and find her the old-fashioned way.
I slept past my alarm the next morning and woke to my phone ringing. It was my dad, ready to drive to Danton. I quickly got dressed, brushed my teeth, and pulled my hair back into a ponytail.
Dad pulled up in the van, and we rode in companionable silence for most of the way. When we parked in the visitor lot at the hospital, I felt for the shape of the small vial through the thin fabric of my bag.
When we got to Brad’s room, Mom hugged Dad and then me, and I looked over her shoulder at my brother. Pale skin and dark circles under his eyes made him ghostly, and my heart ached for him. Dad said hello to Bradley, ruffling his hair like my brother was five years old, and made small talk for a few minutes. Then my parents pulled two chairs close together and talked with their heads bent toward each other. My gaze lit on the pitcher of water and plastic cup on the other side of Brad’s bed.
“How are you feeling?” I said, my voice low. I glanced at my parents, then slipped the glass vial from my bag.
“Been better. But you’re going to help me, right?” he said. I tried to hide my surprise. His eyes followed my hands as I pulled the lid from his water pitcher and quickly squeezed three droppers full of tincture into it.
“Aunt Dorothy helped me make this. Natural remedy. We figured it couldn’t hurt,” I said. I tucked the bottle back into my bag, then filled up his cup from the pitcher. “So how did you know I could help?”
The shadow of a mischievous smile crossed his face, and for a moment, he looked like the Bradley I always pictured in my mind. “I had a dream about Grandma Doris,” he said.
“Ah. I’ve had dreams about her, too. Really vivid ones.” I watched Bradley out of the corner of my eye for any sign that he suspected his dream was something more. But he just settled back against the pillows. I gestured to his cup. “Drink some, will ya? I need to go find Toby Ellison, but I’ll be back.”
I used the barest wash of green influence on my parents, told them I’d return in a few minutes, and walked out of Brad’s room to the nurse’s station. I told the nurse at the desk I was Toby’s stepsister, and pushed a bit of orange and green at her for good measure, and she pointed me toward Toby’s room.
I knocked on the door. “Toby? It’s Corinne Finley. I just wanted to say hi.”
“Come on in,” he called.
I stepped into Toby’s room and quickly scanned his body. An ugly mass like Brad’s was lodged at the base of the right lobe of his lungs. It seemed to be pressing against some other organ I couldn’t name. I made a mental note to look up some basic anatomy later.
I smiled. “I’m here visiting my brother. I told Angeline I’d check on you. How are you?”
“Better now that my fever is down.” He tried to look brave, but his eyelids drooped closed every few seconds. “I haven’t spent this much time in a hospital since I was a little kid.”
“Oh?” I said. “Were you sick a lot?”
“Yeah, I used to get pretty severe asthma. Really freaked out my parents. I still have attacks sometimes, but it’s not nearly as bad as it used to be.”
His lungs were his weak area.
“How’s Angeline?” he asked, his eyes lighting a little.
“Worried about you, but okay. She misses you a lot.”
“Tell her I miss her, too, and I hope she stays well.” His expression shifted from warm to troubled. “Seems like lots of people from our class are getting sick lately.”
I nodded, and pushed a small vortex of green at him, and his face relaxed into passivity.
“Where are your parents?” I asked. If possible, I hoped to avoid surprise interruptions while I was dropping murky green liquid into Toby’s water.
“Eating in the cafeteria.”
I chattered about school and Ang while I filled his water pitcher from the sink, dropped tincture into it, and t
hen poured him a cup full and watched him drink.
“Hope you feel better soon, Toby,” I said, and I closed the door softly behind me.
When I turned, I spotted Genevieve and Hannah’s mothers down the hallway. One of them dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. My heart dipped. Sophie’s friends must have gotten worse.
I found each girl’s room and repeated the whole routine I’d just done with Toby. I had to use the influences on Genevieve’s mom and Hannah’s older sister, but I was able to deposit the rest of the tincture in the girls’ water pitchers. Hannah’s lower abdomen seemed to be affected, and I wondered if the location had to do with her multiple food allergies. Genevieve was different. Small pieces of the ugly black substance seemed to be lodged along her spine. I didn’t know anything about her health history, so I couldn’t guess why.
When I returned to Brad’s room, I found my brother asleep and my parents reviewing some bills at the small table in the corner.
“Just a few more minutes and we’ll take off,” Dad said to me, and then he bent over the papers again.
I mentally scanned my brother’s torso, hoping to find the tincture already had some effect. The mass definitely seemed smaller, and possibly less resistant. I probed it a little, and Brad stirred but didn’t wake. Maybe at my next visit, I’d be able to use the influences to shrink it more. If nothing else, I’d refill the glass vial from Aunt Dorothy’s jar and bring more tincture with me.
A deep, unexpected exhaustion overtook me on the way back to Tapestry, and I slept so soundly it took me a moment to recognize my surroundings when Dad pulled into our driveway. I was grateful for the rest because I planned to spend part of the night checking on Mason, Ang, and Sophie in the hypercosmic realm, and the other part trying to track down Zane. I wanted his take on my plan. It was time to stop Harriet.
|| 22 ||
I ENTERED THE HYPERCOSMIC REALM that night, quickly found the threads for the three members of my union, and scanned them. Then I returned to the cove to wait for Zane. I’d sent him a private message via the website and asked him to meet me. Last time I checked, there was no reply, but I believed he’d show.
I sat down at one of the picnic tables and ran my fingers over the weather-beaten surface. Everything here had a different sort of presence than in the physical, waking world— undisturbed, but also more alive, somehow. The vividness of the sensations and the detail in my surroundings made it hard to believe that only my mind occupied this place. The lapping of the water against the sand, the whisper of the night air through the pines seemed so . . . real. Even the bare patch of wood on the table, where I’d picked away the red paint as Aunt Dorothy gave us lessons, looked exactly the same.
Most of the time I found the cool, continual nighttime here soothing. But now I fidgeted with pent-up energy. I wasn’t sure if it was due to nerves about seeing Zane, anxiety about my plan, or both.
I leaned down and groped around in the sand until my fingers closed over a small, cool stone. I turned it until I found its pointiest edge, and began carving a C on the table. I snickered at my own immaturity—I just had to see whether the C I carved in this realm would show up in the other one.
“Defacing public property, Pyxis?” Zane’s voice lilted with amusement. I dropped the stone.
I tried to laugh it off. I flapped my hand back and forth. “Oh, you know, a girl’s gotta have some kind of outlet.”
He slid onto the bench across from me, crossed his arms, and leaned forward. His eyes softened from amused to concerned. “How’s your brother?”
A happy little ping zipped through me at Zane’s concern over Bradley. But maybe he was just asking because my brother’s sickness was an indicator of the security of our convergence. “I might have made some progress today. I gave him a tincture my great-aunt and I prepared. It seemed like it did something, so maybe we’re on the right track.”
“Excellent news.” He looked down at the table, where I’d taken up the stone and continued to dig into the curved line of my initial. He scraped his thumbnail back and forth across the peeling paint a few times. “And . . . how are you?”
I met his gaze, but the directness in his eyes was so disarming I ducked my head and focused on my vandalism-slash-artwork instead. I grimaced and shrugged. “Got a lot on my plate.” I laughed at how ridiculous that sounded.
Zane chuckled, too, and held out his hand, palm up. For a split second, I thought he wanted to hold my hand, but then he pointed at the stone.
“May I?” he asked.
I reached out, the stone caged in my fingers, and let it drop onto his palm. Just as I pulled away, he closed his fingers and brushed the length of my thumb. A hot tingle bolted up my arm.
He began scraping at the peeling paint using a flat edge of the stone. “So, you called this little meeting. What can I do for you, Pyxis?”
I straightened and folded my hands on the table. “I have an idea, maybe a way to contain the false Pyxis. But I need to know if it’s possible to teach the rest of my union how to consciously come here, like I can.”
“Sure, that’s possible.”
“Good. That’s the only way we have any chance,” I said. “So you know it’s almost the summer solstice here, and that’s another key to my idea. Here’s what I want to do.” I explained my plan, and watched Zane’s face. His eyebrows raised in encouragement while I talked, and I began to hope I might have a chance of taking Harriet down once and for all.
He nodded slowly, pursing his lips. “Very smart,” he said when I’d finished. “I think it might work.”
Some tension dissolved from my shoulders, and I realized how much I’d needed his approval. Relieved and suddenly feeling a bit bold, I leaned forward, folded my hands in front of me on the table, and eyed him.
“Zane,” I said, liking the way his name rolled from the tip of my tongue. “I get the impression there’s something you’ve been meaning to say to me.”
“That so?” He gave me a wry smile, and starlight flashed off his eyebrow piercing. “Can’t get anything by you, can I?”
I snorted a laugh, thinking of the ease with which he’d bumped Mason’s link and taken over in my mind. I was pretty sure I was the one who couldn’t get anything by him. I didn’t respond, though. I wasn’t about to let him banter his way out of this.
He swallowed and looked down at his hands, then up at me. His lips parted, but a moment passed before he spoke.
“Everyone in a union may at times have the gift of foresight,” he said finally. He paused and licked his dry lips. I thought of the vision of my brother lying in a hospital bed and nodded once, a small dip of my chin. “It happens that foresight is particularly strong in me. I see many things before they happen.” My breath came faster as I listened to him speak in the accent that was at once so exotic and so comforting. “Sometimes the visions are just flashes of inconsequential scenes. Other times they’re more detailed and . . . important. But one thing is true of all of them. They’re always spot on.”
“You had a vision of me,” I said. “That’s the real reason you came looking for me.”
“Yes.” His answer came so softly, for a moment I wondered if I’d really heard it or if my ears had conjured it from the silence.
“What did you see?” When he didn’t respond right away, my pulse kicked up. Did Zane foresee Harriet defeating me? My failure to protect Tapestry? My untimely death. . . ?
He must have read the growing fear on my face. His hands slid across the table to squeeze both of mine. “It’s nothing like that, Corinne.”
I couldn’t remember if he’d ever called me by my name. It was always “Pyxis” or “girl.”
“Then what?” I breathed.
“It has to do with me, too,” he said, and watched my face for a second. “Us. My vision is of us . . . together.”
The word “together” hung in the air between us, laced with so much significance. My thoughts flew in two directions at once. Part of me suddenly longed for the familia
rity of Mason’s steady presence, the assurance that he’d always be there with me, for me. Another part of me raced down a path of what-ifs. What would it be like to be with Zane?
I pulled back a little, and he withdrew his hands from mine. “That’s kind of crazy, don’t you think?” I said. “I mean, for one, we live halfway around the world from each other. I’m with Mason. And I’m only sixteen. Who knows what path my life will take?”
He shrugged one shoulder, undeterred in his conviction. “I do know. I’ve seen it.”
“But . . . ” I blinked rapidly. “When? How?”
“Maybe it’s best if we don’t get into this now.” The warmth in his eyes faded, and he looked off to the side.
“No!” My voice strained and cracked, and I pressed my hands onto the roughness of the peeling paint. “You can’t just drop a bomb like that and then put me off.”
He raised his hands, palms up, both a retreat and an apology. “Sorry. My visions don’t place appointments on a calendar for me. I can’t give you an exact date.”
I slumped over and rested my forehead on my arms. I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. But it was true; I knew it was. Something deep down had turned, clicked into place the moment I first saw Zane. Something inevitable set into motion. A new energy now surged through me, as though my body now vibrated at a different frequency than before. I knew there was no going back. But I wasn’t ready for whatever it was. I wasn’t ready to face that part of my destiny because, if I ended up with Zane, it meant something horrible and monumental would have to happen to make it so. Because to be together, we’d have to be in the same place. And I was the Tapestry Pyxis, and he was the Perth Shield. How would it be possible? And what about Mason?