Poison (27 page)

“Land sakes,” Hattie said, trundling off the porch. “Hold out your hand.”

“No, stay back!” I warned, but it was too late. Hattie lunged at me in an attempt to grab my arm. She never made it. It was as if she had run headlong into an electric fence. With a cry of pain she recoiled backward and fell into a snowbank.

I screamed too. Nothing like this had ever happened before.
As Gram and Agnes scrambled to help Hattie, Miss P looked directly at me.

“I don’t understand,” I babbled. “I thought it made people sick, but it never—”

“It knew,” Miss P said quietly.

“What?” I asked, bewildered.

“It hides itself,” she said. “The ring. It won’t allow itself to be removed.” She blinked once, slowly. “And it’s getting stronger.”

I felt cold tears trickling down my face. “Is there anything you can do?” I squeaked. The witches looked at me, their faces caricatures of worry. “I need to get rid of it before . . . before . . . ”

“Katy!” It was Peter, coming around the side of the house with Bryce.

“He forced me to tell him,” Bryce said.

Yeah, right. Bryce was a wuss, plain and simple. “You didn’t have to bring him here,” I snapped.

“Yes, he did.” Peter pushed past him, striding toward me.

“Keep away from her!” Hattie shouted.

Bryce grabbed Peter’s arm. Peter shook it off.

“Listen to them!” I shouted, wiping my nose on my sleeve. “There’s something wrong. With me. You saw what I can do!”

“There’s nothing wrong with you,” Peter growled. Bryce looked at me and shrugged. “And if there is, we’ll fix it,” Peter went on. “All of us, together, okay?” He helped Hattie back onto the porch. “Okay?” he repeated.

“Of course, dear,” Gram said. “And we will. We’ll fix it.” Her gaze wandered toward the others. “We just have to find out how.”

The older women all looked blankly at one another. Finally Bryce sighed. “There may be someone who already knows how,” he said.

I closed my eyes in relief. “Thank you, Bryce,” I whispered. Wuss or not, he was coming through for me after all.

Peter glowered at him.

“What are you talking about?” Hattie demanded.

“I’m going to take Katy back to Avalon,” Bryce said. “To the Seer.”

“Oh, no, you aren’t,” Hattie said. “This girl’s poison, like she said. You’re not going to go near her.”

“If I don’t, she’ll eventually poison Whitfield, too,” he countered miserably. “But they’re not going to care about that in Avalon. They’ll want vengeance for what she’s already done to their lake. And I’m the only one who can protect her.”

“No, you’re not,” Peter said. “I will.” Our eyes met. That was Peter all over, willing to go up against forces that he had no idea how to fight.

“You can’t go,” I said.

“Oh, no? Watch me.”

“Peter, don’t—,” I warned, but he wasn’t listening to me. He stepped through the painting, feet first.

And tore it.

“Oh, man,” Bryce said.

“I’m sorry.” Peter knelt down beside me as I tried to pull the ripped canvas together.

“That was my last chance,” I said, choking.

“I can fix this. I know I can,” he countered. “I’ve been working on something—”

“This may be a bigger problem than we thought,” Gram
said. Everyone looked over at her. “From what you’ve said, the witches of Avalon are already doomed.”

“What?”

“If their water supply has been poisoned, their world will end, and they will have nowhere else to go.”

“Except for here,” Hattie said, gesturing toward the torn versimka. “Through that.”

Gram nodded. “That’s the real problem.”

“No, it isn’t!” I shrieked. “The problem is getting this stupid ring off me!”

Gram gave me a pitying look. “We’re talking about a whole community, Katy. A community that you were sent to destroy.”

“But it’s all tied together. If I can get rid of the ring—”

“It may already be too late to save Avalon,” Gram said. “We have to find a way to bring the residents here.”

“But what about me?” I said in a small voice.

Gram shook her head. “I think it would be best if you waited,” she said.

“She’s right,” Peter said. “Let’s give ourselves some time to—”

“I don’t
have
any more time! Don’t you see? I already can’t go to school anymore. I can’t be around anyone. I can’t live anywhere near other people. Every day I get more poisonous.”

“And you want to expose the people in Avalon to you?” Gram shook her head, clucking. “Not good form, I’m afraid.”

“Help me,” I mouthed to Bryce. He nodded slightly. He understood.

“I’m telling you, I can help,” Peter was saying. “I’ve been working on something that’s very close to this. . . . ” He nodded
toward the versimka. “It’s touch-screen technology, only any sort of picture can be adapted—”

“Dude, can’t you see she’s cold?” Bryce asked.

Peter hesitated.

“She’s your girlfriend. The least you could do would be to get her a blanket.”

Peter looked at me, bewildered. I shivered in response. “Okay,” he said at last. “I’ll be right back.”

“Peter—”

“Just wait, okay? Don’t do anything.”

I expelled a puff of air as he ran toward the steps leading to Gram’s porch. I was going to say good-bye, but that would have defeated my purpose.

“If you’re going to go,” Bryce whispered, “go now.”

“But the versimka—”

“It might still work.” Bryce pushed me toward the painting. At that moment Peter, who was at the top of the steps with his hand on the doorjamb, turned around, looking as if he’d just been stabbed. He knew.

“Hurry!” Bryce said.

“Come back!” Peter shouted as he ran down the stairs, his breath making hot clouds around him.

I turned around. My eyes met Peter’s. “Katy, stay,” he whispered hopelessly.

“I can’t,” I whispered back.

Then in one anguished movement, I fell backward into the painting.

“I love you,” I added, but I didn’t think he heard me.

•

I found myself rolling down a grassy hill, scrambling to find my feet. Once I finally righted myself, I looked around for Bryce. He wasn’t there. For a moment I thought about going back, but I knew that wasn’t really an option. Gram and the other women, not to mention Peter, would never allow me to leave again. I guessed that I would have to face the Seer alone, until I noticed someone cresting a hill up ahead. I tried to slink unobtrusively into the woods, but he waved at me, and I realized that it was Bryce.

“Why’d you go way over there?” I asked, stripping off my coat and mittens.

“Traveling is a lot harder than walking through a painting,” he bristled. “I wouldn’t be here at all, except that your crazy boyfriend was ready to strangle me.”

“I know the feeling. My relatives aren’t going to be that happy about our coming here either.”

“Yeah, well, I have a feeling we’ll be wishing we’d stayed with them.”

I swallowed. “Is the Seer really that bad?”

“Does it matter?” he said. “We need her to help us. And the only way she’ll do that is if we can offer some alternative to their world being obliterated.”

“Easy,” I said. “If I can get rid of this ring, her problem is solved too.”

“Mm,” he replied. “Maybe. On the other hand, she could just chop off your finger.”

I gulped. “In that case we’d better talk fast.”

“Preferably while running away.”

“Great,” I said. “You know, I’ve got to wonder why you stayed here in the first place.”

He didn’t answer.

“I mean, you said it yourself, nothing ever changes.”

“Why do you think I haven’t left Whitfield since I got there?” he mumbled.

“I thought you were just— I thought . . . You
wanted
to leave Avalon?”

“Of course. Who wouldn’t? Do you think it’s fun living in a cave and cooking over a fire?”

“Sometimes it is.”

“Try impressing a date over a dinner of turnips and deer meat.”

I laughed. “I thought you were their darling. That’s why they sent you, isn’t it?”

He shrugged. “I guess. I’ve worked as a servant to . . . the Seer my whole life, almost since I was born.”

He looked dejected. “I didn’t know there was anything else until I came to Whitfield.”

“I’m with you there,” I said. “I come from a long line of cowen. I grew up thinking I was some kind of freak.”

“At least cowen can be forgiven for being ignorant. They don’t deliberately choose to live like Neanderthals.” He shook his head. “What started out as protection against attack has turned into a prison for everyone here. But nobody can say anything, because there’s nowhere else to go.”

“I just can’t imagine Morgan le Fay accepting this life.”

Bryce laughed. “I’m pretty sure she didn’t do anything she didn’t want to do,” he said. “From the stories I’ve heard, she was pure evil.”

I had to think about that. Morgan had disappointed me, yes, but I wouldn’t have called her
evil.

“She did kill her father, after all,” he added.

I tried to remember the details of the King Arthur legend, and if it was common knowledge that the Merlin was Morgan’s—if not Arthur’s—father. “Wasn’t he walled up in a cave or something?”

Bryce shrugged. “Maybe. All I know is, Morgan brought his body back here.”

“She brought back his body? Why? I mean, it doesn’t exactly sound like something a cold-blooded killer would do.”

“Hey, don’t ask me. That was way before my time.”

“Then how do you know?”

“We all know the stories. This is the place where nothing ever changes, remember? All we have are stories.”

I was still thinking about something he’d said earlier. “Did Morgan have a trial?” I asked.

“A trial? Here?” Bryce laughed.

I stopped in my tracks. “Are you saying that Morgan was turned into a bug in amber as punishment for something she might never have done?”

He ruffled my hair. “Peter told me you were dramatic,” he said. “It happened a millennium and a half ago. Let it be, Katy.”

“Listen to yourself! Your Seer wants to lock Morgan up again. And that’s right now, not a millennium ago. If she was never guilty, that changes everything!”

“Okay, okay!” He held his hands up in front of him. “So what do you want to do, arrest the Seer?”

“I don’t know, but it makes a difference. Because Morgan’s still alive.”

“So is the Seer,” he said.

I blinked at him stupidly. “What do you mean?”

He shrugged. “I told you. Nothing ever changes.”

“Are you saying that no one here ever dies?”

He chuckled. “Oh, we do. But the Seer doesn’t. She’s immortal.”

I reeled backward. “You mean you’ve had the same leader since the beginning of time?”

“I told you, we all have different gifts,” he said with a sigh. “I guess immortality is hers.”

“Man,” I said, running my fingers through my hair. “Talk about absolute rulers. She can do anything she wants.”

“Yep.”

“And she’s got that army of vultures to carry out her commands.”

“They’re not always vultures,” he said. “Shape-shifters, remember? Sometimes they’re worse than vultures.”

I was feeling nauseated. “I’m starting to think maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.”

“I agree. Let’s go back.” He tugged at my arm.

“No,” I said, pulling away from him. “This is the only hope I have, now that the Whitfield witches are stumped. If I don’t find a way to lose this ring, I’ll probably cause the destruction of everything I know. Not to mention my own life.”

“And mine,” Bryce said expressionlessly. “Incidentally, it’ll take us hours to get to get where we’re going.”

I moaned, dismayed.

“Unless you’re willing to try something new.”

“New? Here?”

“It’s not new to us,” he said. “Just you. Don’t freak.”

And then it happened, the slight shift from Avalon into crazyland. It started with Bryce’s hands, which changed into
hooves
—yes, that’s right,
hooves
—before my eyes. His body became covered with coarse brown hair, and his head elongated as a rack of antlers sprouted from his skull. “Are you cool with this?” he asked casually. “It’s pretty far. This’ll be faster.”

“You’re a deer,” I observed.

“Yes,” he said pleasantly. “Now you, if you would.”

“If I would what?”

“Shape-shift,” he said. “Go ahead.”

“That’s not something I can do,” I said.

“Of course you can. You’re in Avalon.”

“If I went to Southern California, would it mean I could surf?” I shouted.

“Shape-shifting is a skill that you can master, Katy. Even if you’ve never done it before. At least try.”

It was very strange, to say the least, seeing Bryce’s expressions on the face of this woodland creature. And stranger still to watch him talk. It was as if I’d walked right into the middle
of a cartoon. I expected dancing bunnies and birds carrying garlands of flowers to come out and start singing to us.

“Are you feeling well?” he asked.

I shook my head to get my bearings. “What should I do?” I asked.

“Just think like a deer.”

Oh, was that all? “Er . . . ”