Poison (16 page)

“Feel better?” Peter said, squeezing my hand.

I didn’t really know if I did or not. I mean, I still thought that Bryce was wasting precious time showing off for his friends, and that Peter’s priorities weren’t so right either. On the other hand, I was in Paris with the person I loved most in the world, a person who was looking at me with his beautiful gray eyes through his honey-gold hair.

“I guess,” I said, and I couldn’t help smiling a little.

“Shall we go somewhere for a
café au lait
?” Bryce suggested. Becca was hanging on to him so tightly that I didn’t think it would have mattered to her if we’d gone on a tour of the Paris sewers, but before long we did find a place.

The French must have not been nearly as hardy as folks in Massachusetts, because we were the only people sitting outside at the café. After waiting for nearly twenty minutes for service, Peter finally went inside and persuaded a waiter to bring us coffee. When the waiter arrived, Peter gave him an American fifty-dollar bill and told him to keep the change.

“This is some pretty expensive coffee,” I observed, reaching into my handbag to pay for my share.

Peter put his hand over mine. “My treat,” he said.

“But—”

“It was worth it,” he said. “Besides, we’re only young once.”

“And he has many dollars,” Bryce said, slapping Peter on the back.

The two of them were making me sick. “Oh, right,” I said. “Silly me. Who says that money can’t buy happiness? Especially when it’s someone else’s money.”

Cheswick started to laugh, then thought better of it. The others were just staring.

“Bryce is right,” I went on. “There’s always more where that came from, isn’t there? As long as you suck up to the guy with the cash, that is. Then you can dress like a king and get all your friends to think you’re some kind of—”

“Stop it.” Peter set down his coffee cup with a clatter, spilling most of it in the saucer. “That was my money, Katy,” he said. “It’s money I earned at my job.”

I looked away.

“I’m not my uncle’s lapdog, whatever you may think.”

It was a horrible moment. “All right. I’m sorry,” I said, feeling as if I hadn’t breathed in the past ten minutes. I wished there weren’t so many other people around. “Let’s drop it.”

No one moved. The horrible moment didn’t dissipate but hung in the air like a dark cloud for what seemed like forever.

“Ooo-kay,” Bryce said finally, breaking the morbid silence. “Time to get back.”

“But we just got here,” Becca complained.

“Alas, world geography awaits,” Bryce said, tapping his watch. “Library period is
over
.”

We all moved to the side of the building so that our disappearance wouldn’t seem so obvious. “Why’d she have to pick
a fight here, of all places?” Verity whispered to Cheswick. He shushed her and smiled politely at me as he took my hand. Becca held my other hand. Peter had moved.

When we got back, the bell was ringing and the hall was packed. Once I got my bearings I tried to say something to Peter, but he was already walking away into the crowd.

“Wasn’t that amazing?” Becca gushed, as if she hadn’t noticed that I’d ruined everything.

I turned away and ran to my class.

•

By the time I got back from dinner, it was already pitch-dark outside. Some of the dorm rooms were open, spilling light and music into the hallway, but most were closed and silent, their occupants studying for midterms. I’d done all right in world geography, but that was a cake course. The chemistry exam, which was coming up at eight o’clock the next morning, was another matter.

I was mentally going through the steps in Krebs cycle when I turned on the light to my room and saw an enormous black dog sitting on my bed. The remnants of a box of Cheez-Its lay around him in pieces, and my bedspread was stained orange. I recognized him: He was the same ugly mutt who’d bombed into the cafeteria the day my lunch had sprouted digits.

“How’d you get in here?” I griped. I was griping to myself, but the dog answered me with a loud “Woof!” and then leaped off the bed, knocking me to the ground. His big muddy paws were planted squarely on the middle of my chest, and there
was a folded-up piece of paper in his mouth. His breath smelled of nondairy cheese product.

Gasping for air, I took the piece of paper away from him, wiping onto my rug the orange drool that coated it.

Come to the store. We’ll play.

—M.

“I can’t,” I said out loud. I was practically failing chemistry as it was. Plus, after she’d taken off for six weeks without sending so much as a postcard, I didn’t feel a tremendous obligation toward Morgan. I was looking up the Emporium of Remarkable Goods on the Internet so that I could get the phone number and tell her I was busy, but the dog knocked my laptop away with his huge tail. Diving across the room in a slide worthy of the World Series, I managed to catch it before it splintered against the floor in a fountain of sparks and plastic.

Actually, the sparks were in my head as my injured thumb crashed against the floor.

“Ow!” I yelled, tears springing to my eyes.

The dog came to me, smiling and wagging his tail so hard that his whole rear end swung from side to side. I set down the laptop and gritted my teeth as the throbbing in my thumb subsided. The dog grabbed the sleeve of my jacket in his mouth and pulled me toward the door.

I sighed. There was nothing to be done, I supposed, except to pop into the store, give my regards, return the dog, and leave. As I was zipping up my jacket, I noticed two matching mud blossoms on my sweater. “Cretin,” I said. The dog grinned from ear to ear and then sneezed on my hand.

•  •  •

The emporium’s front door was ajar. The dog nosed it open, sauntered in, and immediately transformed into Morgan, shaking out her dark waist-length hair. She was wearing a red cashmere sweater and leather pants.

“Are you kidding me?” I shouted. “It was you all along? Why didn’t you just come over like a normal person?”

She shrugged. “I wanted you to come,” she said. “You might have said no.”

“I
would
have said no! I have a chemistry midterm tomorrow morning!”

“Blah, blah,” she said, uncorking a bottle. “Champagne?”

“God, no. And . . . and why aren’t you naked?”

She made a face. “What?”

“Whenever I see shape-shifters in movies or on TV, they come back naked.”

“Yeah, I never understood that. I mean, they don’t come back bald, or minus their fingernails, do they? If you’re a bird, you don’t come back without feathers. If you’re a rhinoceros—”

“Okay, okay.”

She poured herself a glassful and tasted it. “Ah. A good year,” she said. “The point is, you go the way you are, and you come back the way you are. Easy.” She gestured toward me with her chin. “So what’d you do to your hand?”

“Kitchen accident. No biggie.”

“Ugh. Why do you have to
cook
? It’s dangerous. And it makes you smelly.”

I sighed. “Okay, I’m leaving.”

“I didn’t mean you were smelly
now
,” Morgan amended, as if that made everything all right.

“Good to know. But I still have to go.”

“No, you don’t. It’s hours till your midterm.”

“That’s right,
hours
. To learn months of material.”

She waved me away. “Don’t give me that, Katy. You’re crazy smart.” Actually, that was only half-true. My being in the store proved that I was indeed crazy, and not even a little bit smart. “Besides, there’s something I want to show you.” She crooked a finger at me as she sauntered to the back of the store.

“Where have you been, by the way?” I asked.

“Turkey. My aunt bought some artifacts that turned out to have been stolen from a museum in Ankara. I had to bribe twenty officials to get her out of jail.”

“Wow,” I said. “That sounds horrible.”

“You have no idea,” she said. “She was too grossed out to come back. She’s at a spa in Switzerland now. But she gave me something as a reward for my help.” Morgan stood back, pointing to a painting.

I supposed it was my ignorance about art, but it didn’t look like a very interesting painting to me. It was a landscape, with lots of grass and trees, and not much else. There may have been a lake in the background, but it didn’t show up as more than a sliver along the upper border. Worst of all, the painting appeared to be covered with dust and grit and other unsavory-looking crud.

“Er . . . nice,” I said, resisting the urge to wipe it off with a tissue.

“You don’t recognize it?” Morgan asked.

“Recognize? You mean the scene?”

“The type of painting. It’s a versimka.”

“Oh,” I said, my mind a perfect blank. “Was he Turkish?”

“Who?”

“The artist. Ver . . . ” I’d already forgotten the rest.

She laughed. “Versimka isn’t an artist,” she said. “It’s a kind of magic, made especially for object-empaths like you.” She smiled brightly.

“Object-empaths?”

“People who can enter objects at will,” she said. “The Mistress of Real Things, remember?”

“Oh, that. Sure. I’ve been practicing.”

“Awesome. See this grainy stuff at the bottom?” She ran her hand over the surface.

“I thought it was dirt,” I said.

“It is. It’s earth and crushed rock from the area that the painting depicts. Likewise with the green of the grass and the blue of the sky.”

I blinked. “How did the grass stay green?” I asked. “And the
sky
?”

“I told you, it’s magic,” Morgan said. “Go ahead. Walk into it.”

“Uh, I don’t know,” I said, waffling. “The last time—”

“This will be different. Your whole body goes through, not just your spirit.”

I swallowed. “You mean I could die there?”

“You could die the other way too,” she said matter-of-factly. “Anyway, trust me, it’ll be easier.”

“I can’t, Morgan. My midterm—”

“Oh, for God’s sake!” She sighed, exasperated. “Do you know how much trouble I went through to get this through customs, with the dirt and agricultural products and what all on it? Jeez. I thought you’d be excited.”

“It’s not that. I just don’t have a lot of time.”

“But it’ll only take a minute!” she shouted. “You’ve already
used up more time arguing with me than it would have taken for you to go and come back.”

We stood there staring at each other for a few seconds, until finally she set the painting down. “Fine,” she said. “It’s not important, I guess. Not to you, anyway.”

I blew air out my nose. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to see what was on the other side of the ver-whatsis, or that I was ungrateful to Morgan for thinking of me. I touched the rough surface of the painting. My ring, which I’d never taken off, suddenly glowed brightly for the first time since the night I’d gone into the tankard. Morgan was back in the main part of the store, with her back to me. I knew I’d let her down. And she had gone to a lot of trouble. . . .

“Okay, I’ll go,” I said glumly.

“You will?” She spun around, her face radiant. “That’s wonderful. You’re amazing,” she said, downing her glass of wine. “Oh, I can’t wait to hear what’s inside the versimka!”

That surprised me. “Don’t you know?”

“How would I? You’re the psycho-whatsis.”

“Psychometrist,” I corrected. “But where is this place I’m going?”

“Does it matter?”

I studied the painting. “I guess not. Not if I’m just popping in and out again.”

“That’s all it’ll be. Are you ready?”

I sighed. “I guess so.”

“Don’t knock yourself out with enthusiasm,” she said.

“Look, I said I’d go.”

“Okay, okay,” she said placatingly. “Would you like some vino?” she asked, waving her empty glass.

“No, thanks,” I said.

“Well, you’ll need something.” She set down her glass and ran to the back.

“I’m not thirsty,” I called after her. “Besides, I’m only going to be gone for a minute—”

As usual, she paid no attention to me and sprinted back with a glass of pink liquid. “Lemonade,” she said breathlessly as she handed it to me. “You never know.”

“Never know what?” I almost choked on the drink. “I can get back, can’t I?”

“Of course. This is even easier than the other way. Your whole body goes through. It’s not virtual anything. That’s what makes it magic.”

I took a deep breath. “Well, okay. If you’re sure it’s safe.”

“Trust me,” Morgan said.

I got myself ready by concentrating on the glowing blue ring on my finger. Morgan had said that there was nothing supernatural about the ring, but I had to disagree. The question, though, was whether it glowed because the stone itself was magic or because it was responding to something I was generating—
conjuring
—inside myself. That was the thing about magic. It was hard to tell exactly where it came from.

Wherever the point of origin was, I began to feel the tingling sensation that I always got before I entered a solid object, and I knew it was time to stop thinking and go with it.

“Bon voyage,” I heard Morgan say as I vaulted into the canvas.