Poison (20 page)

Gram cleared her throat. “Fatherhood is never a certainty,” she said delicately.

Miss P raised her eyebrows.

“Morgan the sorceress killed her father the Merlin because she was jealous of his love for his human son, Arthur, whom he helped to become king,” Bryce recited.

I sat back. “Wow,” I said. “So
that’s
Morgan’s story. And so the place she sent me to was . . . ”

“Avalon,” Bryce said grimly. “My home. And hers.”

Suddenly I was able to see why Bryce hadn’t seemed wholehearted in his appreciation of his native land, and why he wasn’t knocking himself out to return there. “Those vulture women, then—”

“They’re the Seer’s security force,” Bryce said. “They keep the rest of us . . . morally responsible.”

“By killing you?” I asked.

Bryce didn’t answer.

“Fine, dear,” Gram said. “That’s all terribly interesting, but the question we ought to be asking is not what this Morgan person did in the fifth century but how the cowen girls broke a sixteen-hundred-year-old spell six weeks ago.”

“I’ve told you from the beginning,” I said. “The Ouija board. They called her with that.”

“But those girls didn’t know the first thing about magic,” Hattie said. “I’ll bet they didn’t even know who Morgan le Fay was.”

“It didn’t matter. Summer said the planchette was moving
all over the board. She didn’t figure out that it was spelling out a message, but I’ll bet it was. My guess is that the message was the spell to break the binding.”

“That was how they released her,” Bryce said, awed. “By writing a spell they themselves knew nothing about.”

“Even while they were writing it,” Miss P added.

Agnes, who had just materialized on the sofa, frowned. “Forgive me,” she said. “I came as quickly as I could.”

“Quite all right, Agnes, dear,” Gram said before turning back to me. “But what about the amber?”

“The what?” I asked.

“The substance that encased Morgan le Fay. If the girls released her from it, then it had to have been nearby. Perhaps one of them had it in her possession.”

“I’m afraid I’m not following this at all,” Agnes said.

“Penelope’s finding out about the girls now,” Gram said, getting to her feet. “I’ll ask her. Meanwhile, Katy, would you try to bring Agnes up to speed?”

“Okay,” I said. “It’ll probably help us all to put things in the right sequence.” They all turned to look at me. “First, the Seer of Avalon sent Bryce de Crewe to Whitfield,” I began.

Bryce nodded uncertainly.

“He was bringing a piece of amber to Hattie for safekeeping, because it contained Morgan le Fay, who the Seer said was destined to escape and destroy Avalon.”

“It’s all my fault,” Bryce said, sounding wretched. “That’s what we were trying to avoid. And now it’s going to happen after all—”

“Just stay with me for a minute,” I said. “At the time Morgan was captured, she’d shrunk down to the size of a
mosquito because she can shape-shift, just like the Seer’s army of ghouls.”

“It’s a pretty common gift,” Bryce observed with a sniff.

“Morgan has another gift too, one that isn’t so common. She’s what’s called a Traveler, meaning that she can travel between Avalon and the real world. Bryce has the same gift.”

“I am not sure what you mean by ‘real,’ ” Bryce said.

“Hush up,” Hattie said.

“So Bryce made it to the so-called real world, at least as far as Whitfield. But then the amber containing Morgan fell out of his pocket and landed on the street.”

“Where Summer and her friends picked it up,” Agnes said with a
Let’s get on with it
motion.

“Right. Then later Summer put the witch doll in Verity Lloyd’s locker, and her boyfriend Cheswick got so mad that he threw out five fingers at Summer.”

“For shame!” Gram said. “And in
school
.”

“I didn’t know what he was going to do to the girls, so I threw out another spell to knock his out.”

“The one that made them stink,” Bryce said, smirking. Hattie elbowed him.

“Right. After that I thought everything was okay because the school didn’t punish anyone, but Summer was still angry about the stink spell. To get even with me, she bought a Ouija board at Fred’s Bargain Mart.”

“Fred’s must have been going out of business at the time,” Gram said.

“But a Ouija board?” Hattie looked skeptical. “Why would she do that? A Ouija can’t do anything except call up the dead.”

“She didn’t know that,” I explained. “Summer and her friends were totally clueless.”

“Cowen,” Gram stage-whispered behind her hand.

“Then how—” Hattie began.

I knew what she was going to ask. “The planchette that was supposed to come with the board was missing, so they used the piece of amber they’d found instead.”

“The one I’d lost!” Bryce said excitedly.

Agnes nodded. “The amber with Morgan le Fay trapped inside.”

Hattie’s eyes widened. “And those idiot girls used it in a
board game
?”

I nodded. “After it wrote out the releasing spell, she burst out of the amber and promised to grant the girls a wish.”

“Why?” Hattie asked. “She didn’t have to do any such thing.”

“I think it was so that they wouldn’t talk to anyone about what had happened.”

Everyone seemed to be in agreement about this. “And they really thought they had power,” Hattie said, shaking her head. Gram
tsk
ed.

“They had enough to turn my burger and fries into slugs and severed fingers,” I said.

“That must have been a terrible strain,” Agnes said.

“No lie. It totally wrecked my lunch.”

“On
them
,” she explained. “Spellwork is demanding, even for trained and talented witches. For non-adepts . . . ”

“Can you
imagine
?” Gram said, wincing.

“But they all collapsed at the same time,” I said. “It happened the next night, in front of me. That didn’t happen because they just got
tired.
”

“You’re right,” Agnes said. “They didn’t do anything. Morgan performed the magic that transmogrified your food.”

“So why did they fall down then, just when I arrived? Was that a coincidence?”

Hattie laughed, a deep alto rumble. “Honey, nothing’s a coincidence,” she said. “That part of it seems clear to me.” She looked over at Gram, and then back at me. “You were what she was after all along.”

•

“Her?” Bryce stared at me. “Am I missing something? Why would Morgan want Katy?”

“Because she has power,” Hattie said. “And your sorceress knew it as soon as Katy walked into the girls’ dorm room. Maybe even before that.”

Bryce frowned. “Excuse me, but this is Whitfield. There are many powerful people here.”

I sucked in air. “But not many who can travel through objects.”

“What?”

I told them about the tankard. “But then she gave me this painting—a versimka, she called it—that I could just walk through.”

“To get to Avalon?”

I nodded.

There was a long silence. Finally Gram asked, “What did you do there?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Nothing much. The first time, I fell into the lake. The second time, Morgan slipped me a roofie or something and I just wanted to sleep, but these witches chased me away. Well, first they bit me—”

“They bit you?”

“They turned into sand fleas or something,” I said. “But then they shape-shifted into vultures and came after me.”

Bryce nodded. “They’re the price we pay for living in peace and security.”

“But they didn’t hurt me,” I interrupted. “The vultures. Actually, I think I hurt
them
.”

“It sounds as if they wanted you to leave,” Agnes said.

“Oh, definitely.”

“Because you hurt them?”

“No, I didn’t do that until . . . I can’t remember.” I shook my head. “I’m sorry, but I was pretty groggy by then. I remember a bright light . . . ” I tried to remember exactly what had driven them away, but I couldn’t. “I guess they just don’t like strangers,” I finished.

Bryce swallowed, thinking. “No, it’s more than that,” he said. “Morgan
is
going to destroy Avalon, just as the Seer predicted. Only she’s not going to do it herself.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “That’s why she wanted Katy. As an assassin.”

There was a swift intake of air from everyone in the room.

“No!” I shouted. “That can’t be! I didn’t do anything!”

“Not yet,” Agnes said cryptically.

•  •  •

“Summer and her three friends are all conscious and doing well.” Miss P stood in the archway leading from the kitchen. There were sighs of relief all around. “They all came to at the
same time. Not that the hospitals are likely to check with one another,” she added.

“Then we shall all remain silent about the matter,” Gram said.

I objected. “But what about Summer? I talked to her when she was inside the doll. I was
with
her. She’s not just going to forget that.”

“You’d be surprised the things people forget,” Miss P said primly.

“Oh.” I was getting it. “Right.” Miss P had gone into Summer’s mind and convinced her that our encounter had never taken place, that she’d never released Morgan le Fay from the piece of amber, that she and her friends had never asked for or received any unusual powers, and that none of them had ever been incarcerated inside antique dolls in a store that didn’t exist. What those four believed, and would continue to believe for the rest of their lives, was that they had drunk some tainted diet tea that had knocked them out for a month and a half.

“I also urge you not to embarrass yourself by telling fantastic tales to your friends, Katy.”

The others all squinted at me. “Er . . . okay,” I said.

“Not even your best friends,” Agnes reminded me. Hattie just rolled her eyes.

“All right. I know already.” Jeez. Nobody trusted me with a secret as far as they could throw me.

“The best course of action would be to put this all behind us and move forward with our lives,” Miss P said.

“Yes, but . . .,” Bryce waffled. “What about the amber?”

Gram looked earnestly at Miss P. “Penelope, dear, did any of those girls—”

“No,” she answered. “None of them had any inkling about the importance of the amber.”

“Then I guess it’s gone forever,” Bryce said morosely.

“Does it really matter?” I asked.

“Of course it matters!” he shouted. “Without the amber, Morgan can’t be trapped again!”

I pressed my lips together, thinking. Something had been bothering me for a long time. “Er . . .,” I began.

Everyone sighed in exasperation. “What is it now, Katy?” Agnes asked, looking at her watch. “I have an eight o’clock class.”

“Me too,” I said. “But I need to ask . . . er . . . amber’s a stone, right?

Bryce sighed. “You don’t even know what it looks like?”

“Of course I do,” I answered defensively. “Sort of.” Which was to say, I knew it often had things like flies and bubbles in it, but I’d never actually seen a piece of amber, or touched one.

Hattie clucked irritably, but Gram was unperturbed. “Why, it’s
amber
-colored, dear. Brownish-yellowish. Transparent. It’s made from the resin of trees, so it’s very lightweight—so much so that it’s often mistaken for plastic—”

“Oh, God,” I said, closing my eyes. The thing that had been lurking at the back of my mind burst forward. “I’ll be right back.”

“What on earth . . . ” Gram squeaked behind me as I took the stairs to my bedroom three at a time.

They were still here, the two broken pieces of what I’d thought was brown plastic that I’d taken from Summer’s room. I pressed the pieces together. Summer had been right: The
hole in the middle was shaped like Snow White Barbie.

And as soon as I touched them, I saw Morgan’s face.

It was the face of the young girl in my visions. She was younger and less glamorous than the real-life Morgan I’d known, but now that I’d made the connection, it was obvious that they were one and the same. The girl who had befriended me was the monster that Bryce had been hunting all along. And her whole life was contained in these pieces of amber.

I tossed them into the air and caught them again. This was where Morgan had spent the past sixteen hundred years. And where, once Bryce caught her again, she would spend eternity.
Sorry, Morgan
, I thought.
Wish things could have been different.

“Is this what you’re looking for?” I asked, handing the pieces to Bryce.

He leaped to his feet. “How long have you had these?”

“I got it from Summer’s room after she was taken away,”

Hattie sputtered, putting down her teacup with a clatter. “Do you mean to tell us that you broke into that child’s room
again
?”

“I was trying to find some evidence,” I said, although it sounded more like a question. “And I didn’t break in the first time. The girls opened the door—”

“Saints alive, will you
never
cease meddling—”

“It’s not her fault,” Miss P said, fatigue showing in blue patches under her eyes. Magic takes a lot out of you. “Summer’s room had been cleared out. Everyone overlooked the pieces of amber. Even the police.”