Alight The Peril (2 page)

“Aunt Dorothy?” I called. “It’s me and Mason.”

“In here,” she said from the kitchen. She appeared in the doorway, wiping her hands on a dish towel. Her eyes shone, and she moved with more energy than she had since before her accident, or whatever had landed her in the nursing home.

“Come in.” Her expression grew concerned as she took in our faces. “What is wrong, my dears?”

We recounted what happened on the way over, and Aunt Dorothy’s eyebrows shot up when we got to the part about Harriet bumping me out of Mason’s mind.

“That should not be possible,” she said. “The link between Pyxis and Shield should be indelible. Perhaps you imagined it, some side effect of your link settling in.”

Mason and I glanced at each other. “It seemed awfully real to me,” he said.

“Me, too.” I frowned at my great-aunt. “Mason was in real pain. And we lost our link. I
know
we did.”

“Harriet should not have the ability to displace your link with your Shield,” she said, her eyes steely. But I thought I saw a flicker of apprehension.

“But . . .” I began, but I couldn’t think of any way to convince her. “Well, I guess we’re okay now.”

She pursed her lips, nodded her head once, and beckoned us to follow her into the kitchen. “Indeed. And we have much work ahead. Ready to find out what the
pyxis
can do?”

|| 2 ||

I KNOW I DIDN’T imagine it,
Mason said.

Yeah, that was no hallucination. I don’t know how to make her believe us, though.
I gave him a tiny shrug.

Aunt Dorothy picked up her mug of tea and joined us at the table. The
pyxis
box sat on the table between us, lid tipped back. “Any more visions I should hear about?”

I glanced at Mason. “No, not since I had the one about Bradley.” A chill rippled through me. The image of my brother, begging me for help from a hospital bed as putrid smoke puffed from his pale lips, had haunted me for weeks.

Mason had described his vision to me later. He said he’d seen
himself
in the fire, writhing and screaming in pain as blue light burned up his body, turning it to ash. His vision scared me just as much as mine.

“Very well, then,” my great-aunt said. “It’s time you understood what these liquids can do.” She sipped her tea and regarded me over the rim of the mug. “You know, in essence, the actions of each bottle, correct?”

“A couple of them. Kind of.”

She lifted the bottles from the box, one by one, and lined them up on the table. “The blue relates to love and affection. The yellow is for loyalty. Red is for animosity, which can manifest as hatred in its strongest form. Orange makes one unable to hide true thoughts and emotions. The green renders one open to suggestion. And white reverses the effects of the others. When the colored ones are combined, the blends have entirely new effects that may be unrelated to the individual components. Blending them is a rather intuitive art.”

I eyed the bottles. It seemed impossible that a bunch of murky, colored liquids could hold such power. “Now I get why they’re called ‘influences.’ But what do they have to do with me?”

“Well, you are going to learn how to effect those same actions, but without using the liquids. The Pyxis—you—has the ability to influence people the same way the liquids do, but using your mind instead of physical substances.”

I stared at her. “You mean, I think blue at someone and he falls in love with me? I think green and he’ll do whatever I say?”

The corners of her mouth turned up and she chuckled. “Yes, a bit like that.”

“Wow.” I couldn’t hold back a smile. If I could do that, I could pretty much get anyone to do my bidding. Mason shifted beside me.

“Yes, indeed. The ability comes in very handy.”

“Okay,” I said, suddenly feeling more energetic than I had all day. “How fast can I learn to do it?”

She picked up the green bottle and regarded it for a second. “Hm, let’s start with this one. Get two small dishes from the cupboard.”

I found two petite, white, ceramic bowls and set them in front of her. She pulled the stopper from the bottle and deposited one drop of viscous liquid the color of pine into one bowl.

“Now, touch your finger to the liquid and hold your finger on your tongue. You will try this on Mason.” She smiled a bit apologetically at him.

I dipped my index finger into the dark green bubble of fluid and stuck my finger in my mouth. A woody-sweet flavor spread over my tongue.

“Imagine that you’re gathering the essence of the green liquid into your mind. The taste of it, the power that it has to make a person’s mind open to you.”

I nodded, imagining the green liquid flowing from my tongue into my head, gathering and swirling in a little vortex in my mind.

“When you’re ready,” she continued, “push that essence to Mason with your mind, and mentally instruct him to open himself to your suggestion.”

Mason and I turned to each other and he watched me expectantly, his hazel eyes alert and a little guarded. I closed my eyes and focused on the green eddy in my mind’s eye, then imagined it flowing into Mason’s mind, along a channel between us that opened wider and wider. My lids lifted and I watched his face. His gaze softened.

“Mason?” I said. His eyes met mine. “There’s a bag of flour in the pantry. Would you go get it?”

He silently rose, retrieved the flour, and set the bag on the table. I pressed my lips together to hide a grin. It was time for a little payback for the tricks he’d been playing on me since we’d linked. I turned in my seat to pluck a clean spoon from the silverware drawer and offered it to him. “Scoop up a big spoonful of flour, and eat it.”

He unrolled the top of the bag, dug the spoon into it, and shoved a heaping pile into his mouth. He frowned as it started to gum up, and when he tried to swallow he coughed and dusted the front of his shirt with flour. I dipped my chin and snorted a laugh. It served him right after the way he’d been snooping around in my brain lately.

The harder he tried to swallow the flour, the more he coughed. Pretty soon his eyes started tearing, and I finally took mercy on him and handed him a glass of water. My great-aunt’s lips were drawn into a composed line, but her eyes twinkled.

“Do you want me to drink all of it?” he asked, his lips caked with white powder.

“Drink as much as you want,” I said, and I passed him a napkin. “Wipe off your mouth, too. And then fold your napkin into an origami crane.”

He drank, scrubbed at his mouth, and then stared down at the napkin in his hand. His face crumpled. “I’m sorry. I don’t know how to make an origami crane.” He looked up at me like he’d just told me he ran over my puppy.

Patting his hand, I tried to keep a straight face. “It’s okay. You don’t need to do that. You can sit down.”

“Well, I think we can call that a roaring success,” Aunt Dorothy said, her eyes sparkling with amusement. “Now, you should release him from the influence of the green liquid.” She put one drop of white liquid in the second bowl. I stuck my finger in it and touched it to my tongue. It tasted chalky and vaguely woody. I closed my eyes and imagined the white liquid washing over Mason, dissolving away the green vortex.

I opened my eyes, and Mason’s accusing gaze met mine.
What the heck, Corinne?

I snickered.
Got you
.

“Very good, my dear. I’m glad to see this part is coming easily for you.” Aunt Dorothy nodded. “You will need to practice again with each of the other bottles, and soon you should be able to convey the different influences without using the liquids at all. You also will need to gain the ability to attenuate them so you’re able to impart a very subtle influence or a very strong one, depending on what the situation calls for.

“Let’s try one more today. Fetch another bowl.” I did as she asked. “How about the red?”

I eyed the bottle filled with liquid the color of dried blood. My great-aunt dispensed a drop of it into the empty bowl. I looked down at the rusty smear of liquid, hesitating.

“Go on, dear. Remember, you can erase the effects with the white.”

I took a breath, slid my finger across the red liquid, and tasted it. It was sharp and floral, like metal and roses. Not an unpleasant taste, but somehow unsettling. Like before, I gathered the essence in my mind and projected it to Mason.

His face creased in a faint scowl.

“How do you—”

“How could you even
think
I’d do that with her?” Mason’s voice held a sharp edge I’d never heard before, and my eyebrows shot up in surprise. “You know me better than that, Corinne. You didn’t even give me a chance to explain, and you still haven’t let it go.”

I hurriedly stuck my pinkie in the white liquid and tasted it, and pushed its cleansing essence to Mason. His expression went from angry to bewildered to forlorn, and he stared at the tabletop.

Sorry. Not sure where that came from.

No worries. I’m sorry you have to be the guinea pig.

My stomach rolled uneasily. Mason and I hadn’t talked about
the incident
since the night of the dance. The night I’d accused him of kissing Sophie before he left for Africa. It turned out Mason wasn’t the guy whose tongue she was sucking, but of course I didn’t know that until much later. And in the meantime, I’d kind of given him the silent treatment during the semester he was gone. I wanted to cringe every time I thought about it. Not my most mature decision ever.

Aunt Dorothy’s face was unreadable. “Before I set you free with this ability, I need to know you can be trusted not to misuse it. The power of the
pyxis
is an enormous responsibility. Do I have your word you will use the influences only in the service of the pyramidal union and protecting the convergence?”

“Yes,” I said quietly, and tried not to let my disappointment show. I could think of about a dozen ways I’d like to use the influences to make my life a little easier.

Aunt Dorothy gave me a sharp look over the top of her reading glasses. “Corinne?”

“You have my word,” I said, my voice firm. “I have a question, though. Before, when I accidentally used the influences in my petits fours, it seemed like, after a while, the effects wore off. Do they really wear off over time?”

“They do, yes, unless you refresh the influence or figure out a way to set it more permanently. I gathered from your grandmother that neither of those methods was particularly desirable. In most cases, you would not want the effects to be long-lasting, anyway. That would be a bit unethical, I think.”

“Did Grandma Doris ever say anything about how to ‘set’ an influence?”

“Not that I recall, my dear.”

I nodded, not entirely satisfied with her answer, but not surprised either.

“There’s one more thing,” she continued. “News from your grandmother.”

I frowned. My grandmother had died nearly a year ago. She’d come to me in dreams since then, but . . .
news
?

“I know this will seem difficult to understand, to believe.” My great-aunt clasped her hands together. “But your Grandmother Doris is in contact with others like her. They watch over our convergences from their own realms. Though powerless to act or defend against an attack, some of them possess very helpful gifts. Those strong in foresight, or seeing possible futures, have foreseen visions of Tapestry.”

“Wait,” I interrupted. A whole legion of people somewhere—wherever my grandmother was now—who could see the future? “You said possible futures. So whatever they see isn’t set in stone?”

Aunt Dorothy nodded. “The strongest of the visions all point to one dependency. Your pyramidal union, the
complete
union, must deal with Harriet before summer solstice is over, or—” She stopped and looked at each of us, and when she spoke again her voice was low and solemn. “The convergence will fall . . . and no trace of Tapestry or the people who live here will survive.”

The worry lines across her forehead deepened as she looked at each of us in turn. My throat dried up, and my mind churned.

“Summer solstice is a little less than two months away,” Mason said, his face pale. I reached for his hand under the table, and his fingers closed firmly around mine.

“Yes.” Aunt Dorothy straightened. “But I have every confidence you will be ready for the challenge.”

When Mason and I left Aunt Dorothy’s, the sun had just set behind the mountains, and the evening air had cooled. I wrapped my arms around my middle. My light jacket was barely enough to keep me warm, but Mason walked comfortably beside me in short sleeves and cargo shorts.

I opened my mouth and then clicked it shut. What could I say after the bomb my great-aunt had dropped on us? We trudged silently for a couple of blocks.

“So you want to practice the thought projection stuff later tonight?” he asked. “I have a feeling I won’t be getting much sleep.”

My heart jumped a little. Really, he was asking if it was okay to show up at my room late, after everyone else was asleep.

“Yeah, me neither.” I tried to keep my voice casual and my mind blank. But I couldn’t control my heart, pattering away in my chest.

|| 3 ||

LATER THAT NIGHT, I lay in bed staring at the barely visible square of light the window formed behind the curtain. I still had a thousand questions about what was going to happen to me, Mason, Ang, and the mystery Guardian, and it seemed like every time Aunt Dorothy told us more, another bunch of questions just spawned in my mind.

Some things seemed urgent, like bringing another Guardian into all of it. And how exactly were we all supposed to work together? I had no idea what was coming, or what we would have to do before the solstice.

In a matter of weeks, my life had become nearly unrecognizable. The crazy part was that day-to-day things were almost the same. I still went to school, worked shifts at the café, ate Sunday dinner with my parents and Brad, texted Angeline a hundred times a day. But the Corinne who did all of those things six months ago hardly existed now. She’d been replaced by a girl who no longer stressed over getting an A on the next geometry test or whether her hair was doing that stupid flippy thing. Now, I had to figure out how to manage a voice in my head and stop a cloud of evil.