Poison Princess (13 page)

I pictured Brandon's clean-cut good looks, his wavy brown locks, his letterman jacket and bright future.

Jack's prospects? The state penitentiary in Angola. Just a matter of when he got sent there.

If Brandon was a good boy but not yet a great guy, Jackson was a bad boy—and already a bad guy.

And yet with the Cajun, I'd gotten a taste of what it was like to desire a boy,
really
desire. . . .

He offered me his flask.

I declined, asking, “Why do you drink so much?”

“You're a fine one to talk, you.” When he saw I was waiting for an answer, he said, “Give me one reason not to.”

“It's bad for your health.”

“You think I'm goan to live long enough to die of the effects of alcohol? Cheers to that.”

I tilted my head at him, musing on all the rumors that swirled around him—the knifings, the correctional center, the thefts in Sterling. “Jackson, are you as bad as everyone says?”

At the rim of his flask, he said, “A thousand times worse,
fille
.”

Thunder rumbled in the distance, as if to punctuate his statement.

Once we'd reached the dirt track that ran between two large cane fields, I said, “Thank you for seeing me this far. I'm good from here.”

“I'm not goan to leave you in the middle of a field,” he grumbled, yet with every step deeper into the cane, he seemed to grow more uneasy. “In the bayou, folks think this place is haunted.” He again cast me that studying glance. “Is it?”

“Maybe a little.” When the cane whispered in the windless night, I edged closer to the rows, running my splayed fingers over the stalks, taking comfort after my hallucination. Here I was safe.

A calm descended over me. I soaked up the sultry air, savoring the insect chatter, the sweet smell of dew, the animals at play all around us.

Everything was so alive,
teeming
with life. I sighed, my lids going half-masted.

“Drôle fille,”
Jackson muttered. In proper French,
drôle
meant
funny
. In Cajun?
Weird.

“What did you say?”

“It's a foggy night and we're walking by these rustling canes. A
p'tee fille
like you strolling along without a care in the world? Shouldn't you be hanging on to my arm?”

“Hardly.”

When something stirred nearby, Jackson said, “This cane doan . . . unsettle you?”

“I love it. You're probably just hearing raccoons.”
Or snakes.

I noticed that he hadn't hit that flask once since we'd been surrounded by cane. Maybe he sensed that something wasn't right with me, with this place. Maybe he believed the tales of hauntings and wanted to be on his guard.

When I could make out Haven's lights in the distance, I asked, “Are you superstitious, Jackson?”

“
Mais
yeah. Just 'cause I'm Catholic doan mean I can't be superstitious,” he said, exhaling with relief once we'd emerged from the cane. Then he immediately whistled low at the sight of Haven House. “Even bigger than I remember.”

I tried to see it from his eyes. The gaslights flickered over the twelve proud columns. Night-blooming jasmine ascended the many trellises, forever reaching for the grand old house as if with lust. Those majestic oaks had already caught it; they encircled the structure protectively.

Jackson's gaze darted over the place with such keenness that I figured we were due for a break-in directly.

“You know what I think?” he finally said. “I think you are just like this house, Evangeline. Rich and fine on the outside, but no one's got a clue what's going on inside.”

He really could be surprisingly perceptive at times. “You think I'm fine, Cajun?”

He rolled his eyes, as if we were retreading established ground. “And both you and this place are a lot weirder than you have any business being.”

You've got no idea, Cajun. No. Idea.

With a shrug, I turned toward the barn. He eventually followed, catching up. When I opened the door, the horses nickered a welcome. Well, all of them except for my sweet old nag Allegra—named
before
that allergy medicine had taken off; she snored.

Outside the door, Jackson parked his bike, leaning against it. “A big ole mansion like this, and just you and your folks live here?”

Though only Mom's silver Mercedes SUV was parked out front, I let him think I had a father on-site.

“You really are the richest family in the parish, then?”

“No. Everybody knows the Radcliffes are.”

A muscle ticked in his cheek. “Are you goan to stay out here? Woan you get scared?”

Scared?
Six million strong.

“If you asked me nice, I might stay and be your bodyguard.”

When I gave a scoffing laugh at that, he scowled. “You love to laugh at me, doan you,
peekôn
? Enjoy it now, 'cause it woan always be that way.”

“What does that mean?”

He just narrowed his eyes at me, looking dangerous in the gaslights.

“Feel free to leave at any time, Jackson. Because I don't need a bodyguard, and I won't be scared. I don't have a choice anyway, since you refused to take me to find Melissa or Brandon.”

“Radcliffe again?” With a grated curse, Jackson pushed up from his bike, striding to the doorway. “Even though he helped Clotile with that keg-stand? After that, I thought for true you'd be reevaluating your definition of
solid
.”

“You . . . you saw that?”

“
Everyone
saw that. And at your own birthday party, too. They also saw you trying to win his attention back. Looked desperate, if you ask me.”

Bile rose in my throat. Jackson had said that I needed to be taken down a peg. Mission accomplished.

“I just doan know
what
he thinks Clotile has over you. You're pretty to look at in that skirt of yours, you're good at dancing, and you smell like a flower. What's not to like?”

When he smirked at me, I hit my limit.
Enough!
“You're enjoying this!”

“De bon cœur.”
Wholeheartedly.

“You
would
. Because you're a cruel, classless boy who gets off on other people's unhappiness.” I held his gaze. “Brandon is twice the man you are. He always will be.”

Jackson's expression turned more menacing than I'd ever seen it.

Done with him, I slammed the door in his face, then marched into the office at the back of the barn. Fuming, I paced.
Reevaluate your definition of
solid?

I wanted to strangle him!

No, no, I didn't need to be thinking about Jackson Deveaux; I needed to focus on who—or what—had attacked me.

Or at least to determine
if
I'd actually been attacked. When I reviewed every detail I could recall—and damn, I'd been
buzzed
—I concluded one thing. I was screwed.

I could accept the plants—hallucinations or not, they'd begun to comfort me. But the lightning javelins? Death on a pale horse? Seeing the cryptic boy in class?

Screwed. Two years and out would never work. Change of plans. Yes, I'd promised my mom that I wouldn't contact Gran—but I was CLC-bound anyway.

Death had said,
“No one told you to expect me?”
Maybe someone had?

I would sneak a call to my grandmother tomorrow.

As I wondered how I'd begin our first conversation in eight years, my head and face started tingling. Then
hurting
. The barn soon faded away. “No, no!”

Too much! I can't take any more of this!
I squeezed my eyes shut, as if that would do anything.

When I opened them again, I was standing in a windowless room, with beanbags on a tiled floor and
Star Wars
posters on the walls. A basement playroom?

Then I spied the cryptic boy, standing just before me!

“You must prepare, Evie,” he said.

The bubbly sensation I usually experienced now felt more like a migraine, as if this vision were being shot into my skull with a nail gun. “J-just leave me alone!” Then to myself, I muttered, “How many visions can I have in one night?”

“Many,” he answered. “It's the eve of the Beginning. Much work to do!”

Great. He was going to make as little sense as he had the first time I'd seen him. “Who are you?”

“Matthew Mat Zero Matto. Easier to think of me as the Fool Card.”

A card. Ah, God, I
had
internalized my gran's Tarot teachings. A character from the deck she'd always played with was now talking to me. “And I suppose the reaper who visited—the one who wants to kill me—was the Death Card.”

He nodded. “Major Arcana.”

Hadn't Gran once explained the Major Arcana to me? They were special cards, maybe the trump cards of the Tarot?

Wasn't there a time when I'd shuffled through her deck, the cards feeling so big in my little hands . . . ? I couldn't remember!

“And the red witch?” I demanded. “What card is she? How can she”—
we
—“control plants?” That was the extent of our similarities.

I was good and she was evil. Period. I'd be a Glinda the Good Witch of plants—all peace, love, and unity with them—and she would be our hated scourge.

Death himself said that I was all about life—and the witch was clearly all about death.

I pinched the bridge of my nose. As if
any
of these characters were real!

“Red witch?” Matthew frowned. “Ah, she arises. We'll deal with her when the time comes.”

“Deal with her? You mean
fight
her?”

“She's strong. You are
not
. Yet.”

The pain in my head grew excruciating. My eyes watered. “Matthew, this
hurts
!” I tasted blood running down the back of my throat, increasing my nausea.

The pressure eased a little, but not all the way. “I don't want you to hurt,” he said gravely.

“Why do you keep appearing?”

“Field of battle. Arsenal. Obstacles. Foes. I've taught you each; you listen poorly, take pills, drink.”

When blood trickled from my nose, I pressed the back of my hand against it. “I'm about to go under, kid. I mean screaming, hair-pulling, whackadoodle cracked. I can't keep having these visions.”

He gazed at me with solemn brown eyes. “I
won't
fail you. Evie, you are my only friend.”

His heartfelt words took me aback. He did seem so familiar. Just when I was wondering why I felt a measure of trust in him—he'd done everything imaginable
not
to deserve it—I reminded myself that he didn't exist.

I shook my head hard, clearing just enough of the vision to escape. I made for the door, snagging a horse blanket, then out toward the cane. Rainclouds had gathered above the field; thunder rumbled.

“No, Evie,” he called. “Not under the clouds!
Rain . . .
”

I glanced back. He looked frightened, unable to follow. Scared of precipitation?

He didn't need to know that Sterling's clouds were two-faced scammers, hadn't delivered on their promise all summer. I marched on.

“You aren't ready!” he called after me. “Your eyes will go bright if you look at the lights!”

“Just leave me alone, Matthew!”

“Turn away from the lights. Turn away! Want you safe!”

“So—do—I!”

Right before I reached the edge of the cane, he warned once more,
“The Beginning is nigh. . . .”

DAY 0

When I hadn't heard from Mel or Brandon by noon, panic set in. Why wouldn't they pick up their phones?

Surely the two of them hadn't gotten . . . gaffled.

Especially when no one else seemed to have been. Without my cell, I'd been on my laptop, scouring students' posts online for info.

All morning, I'd looked at keg-party pics and Solo-cup shares. I'd read updates from kids bragging about being at the party of the year.

Not a word about the cops. And apparently, Mom hadn't heard anything either. . . .

I'd woken at dawn in the middle of the cane field, having slept soundly for hours. Surprisingly, I hadn't been hungover—a miracle considering how tanked I'd been, so drunk I'd hallucinated worse than ever before.

I'd been desperate to shower and brush my teeth, but I hadn't wanted Mom to see me in the clothes I'd gone out in. After a while, I hadn't cared.

She'd been so distracted by the drought, on the phone with another farmer, that she hadn't even noticed I was wearing a Versace halter and a moth-eaten pair of last year's jodhpurs.

Mom would've heard about the bust by then, yet she'd said nothing, just absently kissed my cheek before running off to another emergency farmers' meeting.