Poison (5 page)

“A center?” I asked. “Like the tall guy on a basketball team?”

Gram burst out laughing. “I keep forgetting you haven’t been here long,” she said.

“A lot of young people don’t know about them, Grandmother,” Agnes said. “After all, there isn’t much use for them these days.” She turned toward me. “We’re talking about
scenters,
as in ‘scent.’ ” She wrinkled her nose. “Although a scenter employs much more than a sense of smell.”

“A scenter is a sort of detective,” Gram added excitedly. “Someone skilled in the use of many senses.”

“Many?”
I asked. “Like five?”

Agnes
tsk
ed. “There are more than five senses, Katy. You should know that.”

“Of course she does!” Gram leaned forward. “How does it feel when you push, dear?”

“Pushing” was a slang term for telekinesis, or moving objects with your mind. It was not that big a deal as far as special abilities go, but it was something I could do. “Er . . . I don’t know,” I said. Actually, it felt sort of like sending a whip out from my brain and feeling it wrap like a tentacle around things, but I didn’t want to gross out my great-grandmother. “Weird, I guess.”

“Well, a scenter would know that feeling, and a number of others as well. She—or he, since many of them are male—would be able to perceive traces left in that poor girl’s dorm room from whatever magic occurred there.”

“By sensing dirt and things.” I was still trying to get my head around that concept.

“By focusing,” Aunt Agnes said. “Focusing is the core of all magic. The scenter concentrates on whatever has been deposited in the room—hair, skin, breath—and then sorts out what is relevant from what isn’t.”

“Breath?”

“Nothing is lost, Katy. The breath from your body will remain, in one form or another, until the end of time.”

“Gracious, I hope Penelope doesn’t have too much difficulty finding one,” Gram interrupted. “There hasn’t been a scenter in Whitfield for years.”

“Let’s hope we find one in a hurry,” Agnes said. “It’s been nearly two days. Traces are evanescent, you know. They remain, but they fade quickly, and soon become impossible to perceive, even for a scenter.”

•  •  •

As it turned out, the lone scenter in the tristate area was on vacation at Club Med in Aruba, so Summer’s room would be yielding no new information. Everyone was disappointed, especially me. The scenter might have exonerated me. Better yet, he might have figured out what had really happened to the Muffies, so that they could wake up. I hadn’t liked Summer, but I wouldn’t have wished what had happened to her on anyone. If there were just something I could do!

I began to think about scenters, and how they were the detectives of the spiritual plane. Actually, I could see myself doing that, solving crimes by using my highly honed sensitivities—being in demand wherever people were in need of psychic help, a Sherlock Holmes of the magical realm. I’d be welcomed into the
highest circles of society because of my extraordinary skill. I’d even make inroads among enlightened cowen, bringing our disparate worlds closer together. Yes, I could see myself answering that call.

Katy Ainsworth, finder of lost souls.

“There are traces of everything everywhere, of everything that’s ever happened,” I explained to Peter while we were shucking oysters. Fall was the big season for oysters at Hattie’s. “Like Napoleon’s breath,” I said, elaborating on Agnes’s information with something I’d thought of on my own. “It’s still here, somewhere.”

“His farts, too?” Peter inquired.

“I’m serious!” I shouted, banging my knife on the bucket.

“Okay, I was listening. Traces. They’re everywhere.”

“But they’re evanescent.”

He looked over at me. “Like those baking soda volcanoes?”

I gave him a hard look. “No, not
effervescent,
” I said, as if I didn’t know he was pulling my chain. “Evanescent. The traces fade. They’re made of things like dust and odor, so they fade.”

He shrugged. “I don’t think they fade very fast,” he said. “Not in my room, anyway.”

“Believe me, I know. I’ve been there.” I put down my knife, thinking. “Still, it’s worth a shot.”

He sighed. “What sort of shot, exactly, are you thinking about, Katy?” he asked.

“I have to get back into Summer’s room,” I whispered. “To pick up the traces.”

“I thought you said it took an expert to spot that stuff. To smell it or whatever.”

“Well, an expert isn’t available. The room’s scheduled to be cleaned tomorrow.”

“So? What would you be able to do?”

“I don’t know. Check it out. Maybe I’d be able to pick up a vibe.”

“What kind of vibe?”

“A
supernatural
vibe, Peter. If we knew that magic was involved, Hattie and Gram and Miss P might be able to help Summer and her friends. Besides, we might find something else. A clue.”

“I doubt that,” Peter said. “The police have already . . . Did you say ‘we’?”

“No. My mistake. Me. Just me. I wouldn’t want you to be involved.”

“Frankly, I’d feel better if I
were
involved,” he said.

I stopped what I was doing. “Why?”

He rubbed his chin. “Um, don’t take this the wrong way, but . . . well, I’d feel safer if you weren’t going to . . . whatever . . . all by yourself.”

“Thanks,” I said. “But I’m not about to be accused of being a bad influence on you.”

“Just what are you planning, anyway?”

I bent close to him. “I’m going to break into Summer’s room before the janitor gets there,” I whispered. “That’ll be a piece of cake. Moving locks is really elementary magic.”

Peter nodded. “Fine,” he said. “Only, nobody in dorm C is going to let you past the front door after what you . . . what you allegedly did.”

I swallowed. “Maybe no one’ll be around.”

“Katy.” He gave me one of his
Be reasonable
looks.

“Anything can happen.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.” He took a deep breath. “Look, if you’re going to do something so crazy, I can’t let you go alone.”

“But what can you do that I can’t?” I nearly shouted.

He looked right, then left, then crossed his arms over his chest. “I can get you past the girls who live there.”

He explained how we were going to pull this off. In my mind’s eye I could see Miss P shaking her head, blaming me once again if Peter and I got caught.

“But we won’t get caught,” I said aloud.

“I sure hope not.”

“No way. Won’t happen. It’s a great plan.”

•

It was a stupid plan. I realized that while I sat crouched inside the garbage bin that had contained, among other revolting things, the remains of the three hundred oysters Peter and I had just shucked.

“Can’t you go any faster?” I hissed, peering out from under the stinking lid.

Peter was steering the bin on a dolly toward dorm C. “I don’t want to draw attention to myself,” he said, pulling a baseball cap over his eyes. That, plus the zip-up coverall that he wore when he worked on Hattie’s truck, was the closest we could come to a janitorial disguise.

“I’m gagging in here.”

“Sorry. I washed it the best I could. Get down.” He pushed the lid down on my head.

“Howdy,” he said in an unnaturally low voice. After a while he lifted the lid.

“Howdy?” I repeated.

“It was the school electrician. I didn’t want him to recognize me.”

“So you
talked
to him?” I sank back down. Maybe this wasn’t going to be as easy as I’d thought.

“Okay, we’re in the building, in front of Summer’s room,” Peter whispered finally. “Open the door.”

I peered out of the bin and looked around. If anyone saw me, I’d be dead meat, and I’d be dragging Peter to the butcher with me. But the coast was clear. This was as good as it was going to get.

I threw five fingers at the lock. It clicked open. “Okay, go in,” I said.

It was sad-looking inside. Summer’s bed was folded up so that the metal frame showed above the wheels. It could have been anyone’s bed, bare and ready for storage. You’d hardly know Summer had ever existed, except for the posters that had been left on the wall, one of Taylor Lautner with no shirt on, and one of Lady Gaga wearing black boots and a mask made of mirrors.

I wondered where Summer was now. A hospital room, probably, surrounded by monitors and poles with bags of hanging liquids, and maybe a vase of flowers that she wouldn’t be able to see.

Who had done this?

My heart shivered. I knew I was innocent, but right then, that didn’t make any difference to Summer or the others. They were living only in the strictest sense of the word, and no one knew how long they would go on that way. I’d read that people in prolonged comas rarely woke up.

I had to find out why this had happened. Not just for me but for them.

“Should I clean up here?” Peter asked. “To give us a reason for coming in.”

“No!” Sometimes Peter could be so
dense.
“We don’t want to disturb anything. Besides, I have to scent the place.”

He sniffed. “Sorry, but the only scent in here is you.” He made a face. “Oysters.”

I waved him into silence, but he was right. Once I stepped out of the jumbo plastic garbage bin, the possibility of detecting subtle mystical fragrances was pretty well obliterated.

I decided to concentrate on the dust. There was a lot of it. My guess was that the jar of herbs I’d seen, which had no doubt been confiscated, may have been smoked in that room.

It didn’t work, though. As hard as I tried to focus, I didn’t really know what I was looking for. A pattern? If I looked hard enough, would I see a picture, the way gypsies read tea leaves at the bottom of a cup?

“Maybe we should move the bed,” I said.

“I thought you didn’t want to disturb anything.”

“We’ll put it back.”

The bed rolled away easily, revealing a debris-filled corner. “The mother lode,” I said, sifting through it.

Disappointingly, there didn’t seem to be very much of value there—an expired coupon for T.G.I. Friday’s, a Victoria’s Secret ad cut out of a magazine with a circle drawn around a purple racer-back bra, a receipt for $15.80 from Fred’s Bargain Mart, a sewing needle (probably the one A.J. had used to sew the tongue and stockings onto the witch doll), and a crumpled wad of paper that had once covered a drinking straw. I picked it up and smoothed it out. Written across it was a phone number.

“Found it,” I said, dropping it along with the other items into a box I’d brought along for the purpose of collecting evidence.

“I’ve got something too,” Peter said, showing me two broken pieces of brown plastic. “They were lodged behind the radiator. I think they’re from a hair thing. A barrette.”

“Looks like it. Toss them in.” I held out the box.

“I think that’s everything,” he said.

“Then let’s get out of here.”

I knew that most of what we’d found was junk, but there was one object that had made this whole smelly excursion worthwhile. Magical scenter or not, the phone number would probably yield more information than all the dust patterns in the room put together.

•  •  •

The number turned out to belong to some guy at Yale whom Summer had met at a bar in Boston. He acted sad when I told him about Summer’s medical condition, but I could tell by his answers to my questions that he didn’t even remember her. It was only after I’d divulged her approximate bra size—he’d asked me—that he seemed to get a picture of who I was talking about. When he asked for my name, I hung up. I figured it’d be a lost cause anyway, unless I also e-mailed him a picture of my chest.

So that was a dead end. I went through the other things I’d found. The Victoria’s Secret ad wasn’t worth much. I figured that maybe Summer had been planning to impress the boob-crazed Yalie with a purple push-up. There was nothing strange about the needle, either. I even jabbed it into my own thumb to see if it was tipped with poison or something, but it wasn’t.
Then I checked out all the T.G.I. Fridays within a ten-mile radius of Whitfield, but no one I spoke with knew Summer or the others. I considered passing on all my finds to the police, but then I’d have to admit that I’d gone into Summer’s room.

That left the broken barrette and the receipt from Fred’s Bargain Mart.

•