Alight The Peril (25 page)

I turned to Sophie. “Can you feel her at all through your link?”

She shook her head. Her eyes seemed to plead with me to give her an answer, a reason to feel less scared.

I licked my dry lips. “Okay. I don’t want to leave you, but I need to try reading their threads to see if I can figure out what happened to them. Wake up and wait for me in my room. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

The faintest
whuff
of sand under her feet was the only sound at the cove as she disappeared before my eyes. I squeezed my eyes shut and concentrated on Angeline, and physical sensations melted away as I drifted into the sea of threads. When I opened my eyes a moment later, my best friend’s thread called to me. I grasped it gently in my fingers and wanted to recoil. It felt . . . not alive. No vibrations, no hum of memories and life. I let go.

I stuffed all thoughts, arriving at Mason’s thread a moment later. His thread gave me the same horrible sensation.

I sat up in my bed and faced Sophie. She sat with her arms wrapped around her knees, pulled into a compact ball. She was staring wide-eyed at something beside me.

I followed her gaze, and ice gripped my heart. Ang lay next to me on the bed, where she’d fallen asleep, her face still as death. A small cry caught in my throat as I leaned over and pressed my ear to her chest, fragments of pleading prayers racing through my mind. I heard the slow and steady thump of her pulse in my ear, and a small puff of air escaped my lips. I closed my eyes against the flood of tears piling up behind them.

“I already tried to wake them up,” Sophie said. “They’re alive.” She dragged her eyes to Mason’s still form on the floor. “But they won’t wake up.” She pulled her arms tighter around her legs, shrinking away.

I fumbled around until my hand closed over my phone, and absently noticed it was very early in the morning. I dialed.

“Aunt Dorothy,” I said, my voice cracking. “You have to come over here. It’s Ang and Mason.”

* * *

Later, after Aunt Dorothy left and the medics came and strapped my two best friends to boards and transported them away to the hospital in Danton, I sobbed. Heaving breaths wracked my body, and I hardly recognized the shuddering voice that accompanied each new wave of tears. I doubled over on my bed, unsure if I’d ever get up again.

After several minutes, some of the grief and guilt had worked itself out of me. Enough that I could dry my face, blow my nose, and dress myself. Aunt Dorothy was expecting me.

Sophie had driven home to get dressed. When she came back to pick me up, her puffy eyes and tear-streaked face told me she’d worked through her own little breakdown, too.

“We’re going to figure this out, Corinne. They’ll be okay,” she said. I must have looked pretty bad, too, if she was trying to reassure me. But there was no way to know that our friends would be okay.

I closed my eyes, and the images of my two best friends’ parents decided to haunt me. All four of them had arrived at nearly the same time, just a moment after the ambulances. Pure panicked grief stretched their faces into masks that hardly resembled the people I’d known for so many years.

Mason’s mother had let out a strangled cry and fallen into her husband’s arms. An inexplicable flash of anger whipped through me as I looked at her. Mason had practically raised himself, but now, in this moment, his parents showed up.

At Aunt Dorothy’s suggestion, I’d used the influences to help dampen the emotions of all four parents, and plant the thought that their children had probably caught something at the hospital and their comatose states were similar to symptoms of some of the others. My great-aunt managed to soothe them a bit more the old-fashioned way: soft, reassuring words. I’d never seen her so gentle, in fact.

I knew that when they got to the hospital, my friends would be diagnosed with the same mystery illness as the others. I wanted nothing more than to be with them right now, but Aunt Dorothy had convinced me that I needed to stay here and figure out what to do. So as my friends were strapped up and carried away, I frantically tried to bathe their bodies in white influence. But every time the thick layer of Harriet’s influence began to peel away a bit, it snapped back into place like a rubber band. All I could do was try to saturate them with white influence. Maybe it would just take some time. It could help them later, if I could just give them enough . . .

Sophie cleverly devised a one-Guardian net that she wrapped around each of them, a protective shroud.

I glanced over at her as we pulled into Aunt Dorothy’s driveway.

“How come Harriet didn’t get you?” I asked.

Sophie twisted the key and the Honda’s engine died. She looked at a spot on the floor near my feet. “I don’t know. She tried. Maybe because she’d taken me before, some part of my brain recognized what was happening so I could react.”

“But you shouldn’t have been able to resist her influences,” I said. “I mean, no one is really immune to them, not even me.” I thought back to what Sophie had done in my room. Guardians weren’t even supposed to be able to cast a free-standing net alone. What else could she do that I didn’t know about?

When she raised her eyes to meet mine, my eyebrows shot up. She could have bored through concrete with that expression. “I wasn’t going to let
anyone
hurt me,” she said, her voice deadly calm.

For the first time that day, I started to feel the faintest spark of something that possibly, with a little more encouragement, could become hope. As badly as I wanted my friends back, at least I had Sophie. And of the four of us, Sophie was the natural-born fighter.

We found my great-aunt and Mr. Sykes in the kitchen, sipping from steaming mugs. I poured tea for myself and Sophie. It seemed ridiculous to be standing around drinking tea at a time like this, but the warm liquid soothed me. I wrapped both hands around the mug, absorbing the heat.

“I have to find Harriet,” I said. “I tried to find her thread once, but it didn’t work.” I looked back and forth between Aunt Dorothy and Mr. Sykes.

“Ah.” Mr. Sykes set down his mug. “That is probably because you do not know her true nature.”

I considered it for a moment. “I guess I don’t. When I tried, I was picturing the evil, snake-eyed Harriet who wants to suck the life out of me. But she wasn’t born that person. I don’t know
who
she really is, though. And I wouldn’t know how to figure it out.”

“No, you must confront her in this realm,” said Aunt Dorothy.

She was right. I’d done everything I could to avoid it, and hoped that Harriet didn’t have the strength or nerve to do any more damage. Brad and the others getting sick was horrible, but at least I’d been able to help them. Now, Harriet had Angeline and Mason in her clutches and seemingly beyond my ability to do anything for them. Reacting to her destruction and hoping for the best wasn’t going to cut it anymore.

“Well, she has to stay around here, right? Because she needs to be close to the convergence,” I said. I looked at Sophie. “I’m going to need your help.”

|| 30 ||

FINDING HARRIET’S ADDRESS TURNED OUT to be ridiculously simple. It was right there in the local phone book. Sophie went home so she could shower, change clothes, and grab something to eat. A couple of hours later, she returned and drove us to a small neighborhood on the other side of the marina and parked half a block away from a gray cottage with white trim and a tiny, neat front lawn. We regarded it in the peaceful light of the afternoon.

“That’s her lair, huh?” Sophie’s eyes narrowed.

“Let’s go check the shop, and if she’s not there we’ll come back here when it’s dark,” I said.

Sophie parked on Main Street near Harriet’s apothecary shop. Down the street, we saw a group of Tapestry High kids herd into the café. Andy Jones’s head bobbed above the rest.

“Soo, things didn’t work out with Andy, huh?” I said. I raised an eyebrow at Sophie and almost grinned.

“Seriously? You’re going to bring that up
now
?” Sophie rolled her eyes, but splotchy red spots bloomed on her cheeks.

“Yeah, you’re right. Bad timing.” Her blush was satisfaction enough for me. For the moment, anyway.

I reached for the car door and eyed the office building that housed Harriet’s shop. The door that Mason had kicked in had a new handle, and fresh, unpainted wood showed where the frame had been repaired. My powers coursed through me, like I’d just downed about twenty espressos. I pictured Ang and Mason’s still bodies, and my skin prickled with the anticipation of unleashing some of the energy. “Well, we might as well go up there.”

“Wait,” Sophie said. “What are we going to do if she’s there?”

“You’re going to do whatever you can with that Spiderman net-throwing ability you’ve developed. Trap her, use it as a shield, anything. And I’m going to pummel her with everything I’ve got.”

We crept up two dim flights of stairs. We were ready to fight, but no sense tipping her off to our arrival. When we got to the top of the stairs, we paused for a moment, trying to see through the window on the shop’s door.

“Dark,” I said, and strode up to the door so I could cup my hands against the glass and peer through. The door to the back room stood open, and that room was dark as well. “She’s not here.”

“Darn it,” Sophie muttered. “I’m so in the mood to kick some butt.”

I knew exactly how she felt.

* * *

I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening hunched over my laptop, combing the message boards for anything that might help us. I finally gave up when Sophie called me, my eyes tired and my neck aching from sitting there so long. When she came to get me after dark that night, I suggested bringing coffee to our stakeout. But she shook her head. “No way I’m going to fall asleep,” she said. “Plus, it’ll just make me have to pee really bad.”

With my Pyxis abilities electrifying every cell, I knew drowsiness wouldn’t be a problem for me, either. Summer solstice was tomorrow. I kept looking down at my arms, expecting to see evidence of the powers surging under my skin. I was so amped up, I seriously wouldn’t have been too surprised if I’d started glowing. But my arms, and the rest of me, remained ordinary-looking. Good thing, really. It would be hard to sneak up on Harriet at night as Lightbulb Girl.

As before, we parked half a block away from Harriet’s cottage. With no streetlights to illuminate the neighborhood, we had to sit for a few minutes to let our eyes adjust. Harriet’s block was lined with cottages similar to hers. All the yards were well-kept, and I imagined most of the houses were occupied by older single people like her.

Sophie broke the silence. “I’m, uh, sorry about Andy.”

“What?” I looked at her. The curtain of her hair cast her face in shadow.

“I was a total jerkface about him, and I’m sorry,” she said.

I snorted. “You’re forgiven.
If
you don’t ruin my brother,” I said.

“Ruin?” she said, trying to sound offended.

“Oh come on, you know you tend to eat ‘em up and spit ‘em out.” I snorted a laugh. Then my voice turned serious. “Don’t you dare do that with Bradley.”

“He’s different.” Her voice was as soft as I’d ever heard it.

I held up my palm and snickered. “Okay, let’s just not go there.”

The porch light of the house next to Harriet’s winked out, and I knew that was our cue.

“Let’s see if the wicked witch is home,” I said.

We slipped from the car and pressed the doors closed, trying not to slam them. Keeping to the shadows, we stole through the night. My heart seemed to wing around in my chest like a nervous parakeet.

Sophie followed me down the dark strip of lawn along the side of Harriet’s house. We saw no lights in any of the windows, so we circled to the unfenced backyard.

The garage
, Sophie whispered through our link, and pointed at the small detached building on the other side of the house. I nodded.

We stood on tiptoe to peek inside high, grimy windows of the one-car garage. It was empty except for a lawnmower, some yard tools, and a stack of boxes.

I sighed. “She’s not here.”

Sophie winced and pressed her palm to her temple.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“My head. It’s like a weird tearing sensation in the middle of my brain. It’s been getting worse all day.”

My stomach twisted. I was pretty sure I knew what was causing Sophie’s headaches. “Are you going to be okay?”

“Yeah, it’ll pass in a minute. What now? Should we wait and see if she comes back?” Sophie whispered. I could barely make out her face in the dark. She watched me with an unblinking gaze, waiting for me to decide our next move.

I shook my head. “I don’t think she’s out playing bridge with friends. No. We can’t wait. We’re going to find her.”

“Check her store again?”

“No,” I started back around to the front of the house, and Sophie followed. “I think I know where she is.” Actually, now I was sure. It was almost as if my heightened Pyxis abilities helped me home in on my nemesis. She was growing powerful, too, though. Would she sense me coming?

We settled back in the Honda, and I told Sophie where to go. As she drove, my fingers tapped rhythmically against the armrest, and I couldn’t stop my foot from jiggling.

Sophie turned down the dirt road leading to the cove, then pulled over and killed the engine. We got out of the car, and I shivered. It wasn’t cold out. In fact, it was a good deal warmer than the nighttime should have been in the middle of June. No, it wasn’t chill that rippled through me, but anticipation.

I beckoned Sophie to follow me. “I want to go through here straight into the meadow instead of approaching from the beach,” I said.

Her hands were working at her sides, her fingers curling and uncurling in fists.

“Get ready to do whatever it is that keeps Harriet from influencing you.”

I turned and began picking my way through brush and trees. Our footsteps muffled against the carpet of pine needles and moss, we made almost no sound as we drew closer to the meadow. My powers were humming within me, vibrating in every molecule of my body. I built up as much white influence as I could hold.