Poison (34 page)

I couldn’t believe her gall. “What makes you think I’d go anywhere with you?” The pear taste in my mouth was turning as bitter as vinegar. “After what you’ve done to me—to everyone you’ve ever known—”

“But you’re fine,” she protested.

“The girl in Avalon isn’t fine! Bryce isn’t fine. And Peter—” My voice broke.

“All right, all right,” she said, waving me away. “If you’re going to be a drama queen about it, I’ll go without you.” She wrapped her muffler around her neck. “I just thought it’d be fun. We could be friends.”

A wave of rage and hopelessness washed over me. “I can’t
believe . . . ” I let it drop.
She really doesn’t care,
I thought. Not about me, or any of the people she’d destroyed through me. The only person in the world who mattered to her was herself.

But then, I knew that no one believed they were evil. People always had what they thought were good reasons for doing the horrible things they did. “We’re not going to be friends,” I said simply.

She shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

Then she put on her coat and boots and opened the door. “You know, you won’t have anyone else,” she said, turning back to face me.

“I know.”

I watched out the window as Morgan walked out of the building’s front door into the snow. At one point she looked back and probably saw me at the window, but she didn’t wave, and I didn’t either.

Her feet sank deeply into the snow for a while, and then vanished as she slowly faded out of sight. Morgan was a Traveler, and she was traveling on. I was the only one who would have to live with what we had done. What we’d both become.

I lifted the window a crack and tossed the amber pieces into the street. Then I sat down and rested my head in my hands as the taste of pears danced in my mouth like a memory.

•

Yule.

Another sunny day, noisy with the sounds of water dripping everywhere. The neighborhood snowmen were shrinking, melting in the warm morning. Little rivers sloshed in the gutters. Cars made zipper sounds as water sprayed from under their moving tires. Police sirens wailed in the distance. People shouted to one another on the street below.

Life had gone back to normal, at least for most people. Here, though, in this apartment, the very air was heavy with memories. It didn’t matter if those memories were mine or Morgan le Fay’s. They were both crushing, suffocating, toxic. I had to get out.

Throwing on my jacket, I ran outside, my legs automatically making their way back to the park. There, at least, I could breathe. There were a lot of other people there too, more than I’d expected. Surely this wasn’t another snow day.

I checked my phone. There were three messages, all from Becca. I ignored them.

The date was the twenty-second. I looked at the crowds again. Were all these people celebrating Yule? Then I almost laughed out loud. It was Sunday. That was why so many people were hanging out in the park at nine in the morning.

Some of them were there for Yule, though. On a nearby hill a group of women were gathered in a circle, chanting something that the wind brought to me in snatches of sound. Then one of them turned around to face the outside of the circle, raised her arms, and spoke. The wind must have been just right then, because I could understand every word:

“HAIL TO THEE, GREAT SPIRITS OF THE EAST, YE LORDS AND WATCHTOWERS OF THE EAST, LORDS OF AIR.”

I knew those words. This was a ritual of High Magic, and these women were a coven of witches. Well, cowen witches, if there is such a thing. Cowen have invented all sorts of rituals to access the magic realms. Back when I’d lived in Palm Beach, I used to read about spells and rituals, feeling vaguely guilty for even wanting to learn about witchcraft. Now that I’d spent a year around real witches, all of the hocus-pocus seemed silly to me, but it probably wasn’t to the women on the hill. They were trying to find their power in a place that taught them that such power didn’t exist, especially for women.

I sent them a little love-bomb, a message some of them might be open enough to receive. They’d feel the power, and think it was the ritual that gave it to them. That was the thing about magic: Thinking was never the way to achieve it.

There are two basic kinds of magic. This was High Magic, as opposed to Practical Magic, which is magic designed to get things done. In High Magic no one expects anything to happen, but the experience can lead to a kind of enlightenment. It’s like meditation, only performed by a group. Covens liked High Magic because it put everyone in the right state of mind for celebrating things, like the eight major witch holidays.

That made me stop breathing for a second. Last year I’d spent Yule with my aunt and great-grandmother, exchanging gifts and creating a cone of power. There had been a stocking with my name on it hanging over the fireplace, and the aromas of roast duck and apple cobbler wafting through the house.

Suddenly I felt as if all the air had gone out of my lungs. I would never see that beautiful old house again, or Gram, or Aunt Agnes, or Peter. A fat tear plopped onto my glove.

I had to get out of there, away from the ritual. It was just too painful. I started to run as fast as I could, my arms working like pistons as my feet raced along the pavement, splashing water onto the backs of my pant legs.

That was the best I’d felt in days. I never wanted to stop. Maybe I could just do this, I thought, run until I was out of the city, away from everything I knew. Run until nothing could ever catch me again.

Just do what you can
, the homeless man had said.

“What . . . if you can’t . . . do anything?” I huffed, still running at full tilt. “What . . . if . . . ”

Just do

“No!”

what

“Stop!”

you can—

“Shut up!” I screamed, just as I ran full force into someone’s shoulder.

“Watch where you’re going!” a girl screamed at me, so loudly that passersby stopped to stare.

I gasped, waiting for her to slump to the ground after coming into contact with me.

“What’s wrong with you? Idiot!” She reeled around, rearranging a bunch of shopping bags hanging from her arms. But at least she didn’t keel over dead. She didn’t even throw up.

Relieved, I finally managed to close my mouth. My lungs filled with air for what seemed like the first time in an hour. “Excuse me,” I said breathlessly. “I was just . . . ” Then I looked up and saw her face. “Suzy?” I asked. “Suzy Dusset?”

“Who— Oh. You’re from school,” Suzy said, as if she were passing on information to me.

Great. It would be my luck to run into one of the meanest girls in school. But hey, at least I hadn’t poisoned her. Might as well look on the bright side.

“Let’s go,” she said to her companion, whom I also saw for the first time. It was Summer Hayworth.

I stepped aside to let them pass, but Summer came up to me and, inexplicably, threw her arms around my neck.

“Stop!” I screamed, so loudly that she jumped backward. But it was too late. She’d touched me, cheek to cheek, skin on skin.

Summer blinked in surprise. “Okay,” she said, holding her hands up in front of her. “I didn’t mean to freak you out or anything.”

I just stood there with my mouth hanging open for a while. “Er . . . ”
Why wasn’t she sick?
“Er . . . ”

Because she’s cowen
, I remembered.

I couldn’t hurt them.

Maybe living among cowen wouldn’t be so bad, I thought. I could disappear here. I could pass.

The way I did back in Florida. Lying, hiding, pretending to be like everyone else. Trying to be someone besides myself.

“Are you all right?” Summer asked.

“Whatever,” Suzy muttered, rustling her bags. “I’m the one she ran into.”

“I’m . . . I’m fine,” I managed to say.

“I dreamed about you,” Summer said with a smile I’d never seen before. It looked genuine. Her face actually looked kind. “It was weird. I was trapped inside this giant doll, and I didn’t think I’d ever get out, but then you recognized me through my eyes.”

Suzy made snoring sounds.

“And then you came in and talked to me. You told me everything was going to be all right.” She smiled again. “And it was.”

“Positively riveting,” Suzy said. “Can we go now? My arms are getting tired.”

“And then Miss P came and gave me a message to give you.”

“Me?” I asked, surprised.

“Miss N, you mean,” Suzy said. “For ‘Nerd.’ ”

“Shut up, Suzy,” Summer said. “Yeah. She told me that I would never know what you’d done for me.”

I looked around. “Er . . . Was that the message?”

“No. The message didn’t really make sense.”

“Too bad,” Suzy said, yanking Summer’s arm. “Maybe you can write her a letter.”

Summer staggered a few steps toward Suzy. “She said ‘Just do what you can.’ ”

I coughed.
“What?”

“I know, dumb. But it was a dream. What can I say?” She laughed as Suzy dragged her away. “Hey, let’s have lunch together once school starts again, okay?”

“Uh, sure,” I said, although I knew I wouldn’t be going back to school after break. Or ever again. Because even if half the population was immune to me, sooner or later someone was going to show up dead. And no one would know why except me.

No, my school days were done. Actually, my whole life was pretty much done, I guessed. What could I do?

Just do what you can.

Exactly the words the homeless man had used.

Were they supposed to be some kind of special message for me? What did they mean, anyway, “Do what you can”? Of course I would. Didn’t everybody just
do what they could
all the time? And what about Summer’s so-called dream, which actually really happened? Miss P was supposed to make them all forget everything, not pop into their subconscious minds to deliver homey messages of encouragement.
Do what you can.
Yeah, I’ll keep that in mind while I’m living in the Alaskan tundra, Miss P. I kicked a can of Red Bull down the street, surprised to see that I’d walked back to the street where my father lived. I was less than a block away from his apartment building.

•  •  •

There was something about my great-grandmother’s Cadillac that caused my heart to fall into my stomach. “Oh, no,” I whispered as I crept closer.

There was someone inside.

I could see him only in silhouette at that distance, but it was pretty clear what he was doing. I ran toward him, not knowing what I was going to do with a car thief once I caught him. “Hey!” I shouted. “That’s my car.”

He heard me and turned toward me. It all seemed to happen very slowly, maybe because I was very scared, and maybe because I couldn’t believe my eyes. But it was true.

It was Peter.

I gasped so hard that my lungs hurt with the inrush of cold air. A car behind me honked and swerved around me while I stood in the street, shaking and shocked.

“Katy,” Peter said.

“Don’t open the window!”

I could see the tension in his face. He wanted to touch me, but he knew I was right. “Gram sent me to get her car.” He held up the extra set of keys.

I nodded.

“Eric . . .,” he said.

“Yes,” I said. I knew Eric could bring him back. My heart was racing with joy. “Yes.”

“And Hattie apologizes. I don’t know exactly what for.”

I couldn’t talk, so I waved the words away, trying hard not to cry.

“And . . . ” His eyes were pained. “I love you.”

I covered my face with my hands.

“I’m going to fix this, Katy.”

A low moan escaped from my lips. I knew he would try. Peter would do everything he could for as long as he could, I knew, but he didn’t have enough magic to overturn this. Avalon and everyone in it would die, and most of them would never even know why. I was poison, and would be poison forever. Some things, once started, just couldn’t be stopped.

“I will. I promise.” He pressed his hand against the window, his long fingers splayed. “Tell me you believe me.”

I matched his handprint with my own. The glass between us grew warm.

“Tell me.”

“I believe you,” I croaked.

“And you’re going to come home. To me.”

I felt my heart breaking.

“Tell me!”

“I’ll come home to you.”

His jaw clenched, and I knew he was trying to hold things together for both of us. For a long time we just stood there, our hands touching opposite sides of the glass, looking into each other’s eyes.

“Whatever happens, I’ll always love you,” I said quietly.

Peter swallowed. Then he started the car. “Remember your promise,” he said before driving into the road.

I watched him until the car was out of sight. Then I looked at my hands. My fingers were still spread, remembering.

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