Alight The Peril (24 page)

The four of us huddled together in a stairwell atrium.

“So I guess we’re coming back tomorrow?” Sophie asked.

I nodded. “Can you drive us back here? We can all kick in for gas.” As the only one of us with her own car, we’d be dependent on Sophie for transportation between Tapestry and Danton.

“Sounds good,” Sophie said. “I’ll pick you all up around nine in the morning.”

“So, what did you do on your summer vacation?” Mason cracked as we trudged back to Bradley’s room. A tired grin passed over my face. As Mason’s fingers slipped around mine, I remembered Zane lifting me with his touch, pulling me into the cloud of threads. I jerked my mind away from the memory and squeezed Mason’s hand.

Aunt Dorothy and Dad were ready to head back to Tapestry. I started to follow them out to the hall, and then stopped and looked back at my mom.

“Can I stay here with you and Brad tonight?” I asked.

Her eyes crinkled in an almost-smile, as if she didn’t have enough energy to fully form the expression. “Sure, it would be nice to have your company,” she said.

My father, great-aunt, and each of my friends gave me a hug. Mason was last.

“Let us know how everyone’s doing tonight, okay?” he whispered into my hair.

That night, I waited until my mom fell asleep on the fold-up cot, and I slipped out of the room. It was much easier to move through the facility at night. Fewer staff and visitors to question my presence. I checked on everyone, and again found slight improvements. At least no one was worse. I scanned each person, probing for the source of the illness, and fed influences into the dark areas I found.

When I finally returned to Brad’s room, I sank into a chair, and folded my arms onto the small, round table in the corner to pillow my head. I knew I’d wake up with a killer neck ache, but I didn’t care. Sleep claimed me within seconds.

“Corinne.” A hand grasped my shoulder and shook it a little.

I groaned into my folded arms. “I feel like I just fell asleep, like, five minutes—” I looked up into my grandmother’s kind blue eyes. “Oh!”

I quickly took in my surroundings and found I still sat in my brother’s hospital room. Except it wasn’t. The bed was vacant, and so was the cot where Mom had been sleeping. My heart jumped, and I tried to stand, but my left foot had fallen asleep and refused to support my weight. I sat down hard.

“Don’t worry, they are just where you left them,” Grandma Doris said. “I did not mean to alarm you, but I saw no reason to bring them here, too.”

“Okay.” I rubbed my eyes. “Do you know anything about Brad’s condition? Anything else I can do, I mean?”

I tried not to stare at my grandmother, her hands folded on the laminate-top table. She wore a baby blue cowl neck sweater I’d always loved. Something about the color and softness of the fabric made her eyes look curious and bright, like a child’s.

“The key, really, is to control the source of the problem, rather than try to treat the symptoms,” she said. “And the problem, as you know, is Harriet Jensen.”

“And she’s not even really the problem, right?” I said. “She’s more like the vessel for the forces causing all of this.”

“You are right. But she’s not just any vessel. She’s the ideal vessel, which makes her that much more dangerous.”

I thought of the crinkly piece of paper with Harriet’s name crossed out.

My grandmother’s breath stilled for a split second, and I leaned forward in anticipation.

“I believe there is a way for you to magnify your abilities in such a way that would, well, certainly put the odds in your favor,” she said. She pulled at the cuff of her sweater in a gesture that was so familiar it made my chest ache a little. “There is a latent generation in our line, because I did not have a daughter and none of the more distant female relatives manifested as Pyxis. But the abilities that would have been bestowed on the Pyxis in your father’s generation, well . . . I believe those abilities may be available to you.”

I remembered Zane’s words about the two full generations of power within me. Then I frowned as something else tugged at my memory. I couldn’t quite grasp it.

“So if I could tap into that power and add it to my own . . . ” I said.

“Yes.” My grandmother began to smile, but then her eyebrows drew together. “Only, I don’t know how you go about doing that. In fact, I’m not really sure if this situation has ever existed before.”

“Grandma Doris, you know there are other convergences and unions in the world, right?”

Her nod seemed reluctant.

“Maybe a latent generation happened with one of them. Their convergences have been around much longer than ours.”

“It’s worth checking. But Corinne.” Her eyes widened a little as she regarded me. “You must be very careful when you interact with other unions.”

Corinne, we’re here.
Mason’s voice whispered through my mind, and I jerked upright and blinked into the sunlight streaming in through the window across the small room.

|| 28 ||

“SO WE ALL KNOW what to do, right?” I looked from Mason to Angeline to Sophie. They nodded, and Sophie stifled a yawn against the back of her hand. I totally felt her pain. They’d returned to the hospital that morning to make the rounds with me, check on our patients, and reinforce everything we’d done for them the previous day. We’d all used our abilities more in the past twenty-four hours than we had since we’d gained them.

When we got back to my room at home, we ran over the plan to lure Harriet to the hypercosmic realm so we could trap her.

Ang lay on her side across my bed, her head pillowed on her hands. “She better show up tonight. I seriously don’t think I can handle the suspense if we have to do this night after night.”

“Or the lost sleep,” Mason said, and slouched deeper into my purple chair.

I glanced at my phone to double-check the date. “We have about a week until summer solstice,” I said. “We definitely need to get this done as soon as possible. The more time goes by, the more dangerous she’ll be.”

That night, Ang, Sophie, and I squeezed together on my bed like three enchiladas in a casserole dish, and Mason sprawled on the floor with blankets and a pillow. There was safety staying in the same room together.

We gave Ang and Sophie a half hour or so to fall asleep. Then Mason, the bait in our plan, entered the hypercosmic realm and wandered the cove alone, hoping to draw Harriet’s attention. I drifted into the sea of threads, allowing myself to be drawn to his thread of subconscious. I held the thread lightly, feeling for the change that would come if Harriet tried to influence him.

After a couple of hours, I told Mason we might as well call it a night.

For the next four days, the four of us spent our mornings in Danton. We realized that, as long as we kept visiting the patients and going through the same routine, it was at least enough to keep them from getting any worse. A few even got well enough to return home.

Mason and I entered the hypercosmic realm each night, but four nights in a row, our efforts met the same end as the first night.

The afternoon following our fifth unsuccessful attempt, Mason and I sat cross-legged on the floor of the tree house in his backyard. We each held triple-scoop cups of ice cream, which we’d decided we deserved after toughing it out through nearly a week of sleepless nights. I’d even ordered whipped cream and sprinkles on mine.

Just days away from the solstice, my powers literally pulsed through me. I’d learned to be careful. Even the slightest hint of a thought on my part could influence those around me. Just this morning, Dad and I had crossed paths in the kitchen for a few minutes before he left for work and I took off for Danton. I’d been thinking about how I wished I had enough money to buy my own car, and how that was even less likely now that I’d cut way back on my shifts at the café, and I looked up from my bagel to see my dad pulling out all the cash in his wallet, plus two credit cards. “I can write you a check for however much more you need for a car,” he’d said, sliding the pile of bills and cards toward me.

As if that wasn’t weird enough, I’d also discovered that I could flash back and forth between the two worlds so quickly, it was nearly like being in both places at once. I hadn’t decided whether that was really cool, or just extremely freaky.

“Can’t we just take her by surprise when she’s home watching soap operas or something?” Mason asked. He started on his second scoop. Blue bubblegum . . . Gross.

“No, if we try to capture her here in the physical world, she’ll just jump over to the dream world, where she can wreak all kinds of havoc while we’re standing here like idiots trying to tie her up or something,” I said. “We have to take her in the hypercosmic realm. And we have to surprise her and move in fast, or it won’t work. She’s gotta be scary-strong by now.”

“I know, I know,” Mason muttered into his ice cream cup. “Just wish there was a more direct way to deal with her.”

“Don’t worry,” I said, scraping the last of my strawberry ice cream onto my spoon. “When she finally shows up, what we’re going to do will be plenty direct.”

I watched him for a moment. He didn’t know about Zane’s prophecy, but did he feel a change between us? I set my cup down and jumped up, pacing the tree house to distract myself before I gave away something through our link.

Mason watched me walk three tiny steps, turn, walk another three tiny steps, turn, and repeat my route. “Whoa there, antsy much?” He laughed and showed his dimples.

I grinned, but didn’t stop. “Sorry, I can
not
sit still for more than, like, five minutes,” I said. I was a racehorse in a cage, seconds before the bell. It got worse every day.

Mason stood and caught my arm as I paced, and he pulled me against his chest, his arms curving around my waist. I stretched my arms around his neck, the curls of his hair tickling my hands.

He looked down at me and gave me a half smile. “Looks like you can be still for a minute.”

“I’ll give you half a minute,” I said. “Starting now.” I pressed my lips to his, and he squeezed me closer. For a glorious few seconds, I forgot about Harriet, the solstice, even the forces surging through me. But Zane’s ice-blue eyes flashed in my mind. I rested my palms on Mason’s chest, pushing gently. “I should get going.”

Mason nodded and shifted back, leaving a cold band across my back where his arms had rested. His brow wrinkled and he took a breath as if he wanted to ask me something. Then he let it out. “I’ll be over later,” he said, and then, “Wait, Corinne?”

I’d started to reach for the trap door that led to the tree house ladder. I pulled my hand back. “Yeah?”

“Is that other Shield—Zane—is he scaring you or something?”

My heart constricted. “Scaring me? No, why?”

Mason rubbed the back of his neck. “It seems like he’s been on your mind a lot. And he makes you nervous.”

I swallowed and shook my head. “No, he’s fine. He’s just been showing me some things that could help us.”

Mason dropped his arm and regarded me for a second, and I tried not to squirm under his gaze. “Just be careful. I can’t trust anyone who can bump me out of your head.”

I forced a smile that I hoped looked reassuring. “It’s okay. I know he wouldn’t hurt me.”

Back at home, I rearranged the shirts hanging in my closet and fretted over what Mason had said. And then I worried that he’d read my thoughts and
know
I was fretting. I finally covered my head with a pillow and managed to sleep for a couple of hours, and then I made a grilled cheese sandwich and spinach salad for dinner. There in the house alone, I could almost pretend that Mom was working a late shift and Bradley was out with his friends. Loneliness washed over me as I loaded my dishes in the dishwasher and headed down to my room.

I logged in to the message boards, hoping again that one of the other unions would know something about the songs in my dream. None of them did. Frustration and fatigue dragged at me. I set my laptop on my desk, turned on some music, and tried to relax.

My thoughts turned to Zane. Had he returned to the cove, hoping to run into me? His prophecy about the two of us still haunted me—when I had time to think about anything other than my union, Harriet, my brother, and the other sick kids. I couldn’t keep living with the weight of what he’d said, just waiting around to see what would happen, and what it meant for me and Mason. Maybe after I’d dealt with Harriet.

The sixth night began like the five before it. One by one, the rest of my union arrived, and we all settled in for the night. I didn’t want to stress them out more by bringing it up, but we were down to our second-to-last chance. If we didn’t trap Harriet tonight, or tomorrow night . . . well, we were out of time.

After I’d drifted for what seemed like half the night, keeping my finger notched around Mason’s thread, I was just about to call it when something changed. Mason’s flow of energy surged for a moment, and then faded.

My heart lurching, I let go of the thread, and in a blink I stood near the water line at the cove.

Mason!
I screamed, my head whipping around as I tried to look everywhere at once.

My mind buzzed with silence.

|| 29 ||

“CORINNE!” MY HEART IN MY THROAT, I turned to face Sophie running toward me, stumbling a little in the soft sand, her auburn hair whipping into her face. Lips parted, eyes wide with alarm, probably the most flustered I’d ever seen her. “Where are they?”

“Mason is gone,” I said, running shaking hands through my hair. “I can’t feel our link.”

“Where’s Angeline?” Sophie said. She stopped beside me, breathing hard.

I reached out, searching for my link with my best friend. “Oh no,” I whispered. Terror burrowed a hole straight down through me. “I can’t reach her either.”

I couldn’t meet her gaze. Why had I thought my stupid little plan would work? How could I have been so naïve? Now Mason and Ang were gone, and I didn’t know where to find them. Fear and guilt surged through me in sickening waves. Bile rose in my throat, and for a second I thought I might vomit in the sand. Instead, I breathed the mountain air deep into my lungs, forcing calm.