Pyxis: The Discovery (Pyxis Series) (11 page)

I watched Mason’s face as he quickly skimmed the letter. It morphed from concerned to confused to shocked in a matter of seconds, almost like a cartoon.

He looked at me with his hazel eyes so wide, they seemed to bulge from his face. It was as close to panic as I’d ever seen him, and that scared me almost as much as the contents of the letter.

“It’s just, like, some silly game or something … right?” I asked, my voice small but hopeful.

“Corinne, you have
got
to get that bottle of white stuff to your great-aunt,” he said.

His comment confused me at first, and for a horrible second, I thought he’d been affected by the same insanity that must have caused my grandmother to write that letter. But as his words sank into the muddled mess of my brain, I realized he was making sense.

“Yeah, I think you’re right,” I said.

“It’s the only thing I can think to do,” he said. “You’re grandmother was pretty clear that if she wasn’t around, Dorothy would be the one to do … whatever it is that you need. And in your dreams, she keeps saying you need to help her. It sounds like Dorothy’s in no condition to do much of anything for you. So I think that’s where you need to start, by trying to help her.”

“Okay, yeah.” At least I had a task to focus on. “I’ll try to help Aunt Dorothy.”

He took my hand and pulled me up. He held onto me for another half block, probably to make sure I wasn’t going to keel over. Another two blocks, and we’d reached my house. I knew Mason had to leave, but I was extremely reluctant to let him go. His presence was the last thing between the reasonably-calm me and the hysterical, howling-at-the-moon me.

He ran his hand through his hair, disheveling the waves, and gave me a troubled glance.

“I’m sorry I have to go, Corinne.” He folded me into his arms, and for a second, I felt safe, surrounded by his warmth and the earthy scent of his soap. “I’ll text you soon.”

I nodded, and he headed toward his street. Hoping no one was home, I trudged up to the door and pushed it open. I really needed a few minutes to compose myself before I had to face my family.

“In here,” Mom called from the kitchen, and I slumped a little. I’d hardly seen her in the past couple of days, so I couldn’t just breeze by her. I pulled my lips into a smile and squared my shoulders. I held the letter and envelope in one hand flat against my thigh.

“Hi!” I said, trying to match her tone. “What’re you up to?”

She looked up from the dishwasher, and I tried to hold my face in a cheerful, relaxed expression. “Just dishes and laundry. Puttering.” She looked past me. “Did Mason leave? I was hoping he’d come in. How’s he doing?”

The poor guy probably wished he’d never returned to this continent.

“He’s great,” I said. “Definitely happy to be home. I’m sure he’ll be by again soon. He, uh, said to tell you ‘hi.’ I’m going to put Grandma’s key back in Dad’s desk. We went by to make sure the house was okay.”

I edged toward the doorway so I could make my escape.

“Okay, come up in a couple hours and help me with dinner.” I nodded and kept sidestepping. “Oh, and let’s take the car out first thing in the morning.”

Crap. I had forgotten that I’d asked my mom if she’d take me to practice driving before my big test next week. I was a total pro; I could practically parallel park with my eyes shut, but I didn’t have to drive much around Tapestry, so I wanted to make sure my skills hadn’t rusted.

“Great!” In my haste to get to my room, I spoke with way more enthusiasm than my norm. I reined it in a little. “I’ll come up to help you later.”

I skipped down the stairs two at a time, tossed the key into my dad’s desk drawer, and locked myself in my room. I realized that my hand was still clamped around Grandma Doris’s letter, and I dropped it like a hot cookie sheet. The pages drifted to the floor. I left them there and sat on my bed with my back against the wall and my knees drawn up.

My phone buzzed in my pocket, a text from Mason.

I’ll come by around 9 tonight, ok?

I wrote back:
I’ll be here. C u then.

Thank God he was coming back. I wasn’t sure how much time alone with my thoughts I could handle. I suddenly remembered Ang, and I hit her speed dial on my phone. I told her about Mr. Sykes, and I read her the letter. I asked her to come by when she could, but she was helping her mom at church, so she didn’t think she’d make it over.

I shoved my earbuds in, and, hoping that something upbeat would make my life feel less bizarre, flipped to my 80s mix. The opening bass line to “Thriller” started bumping. I hit
skip
. A song about ghosts or zombies wasn’t really what I needed at the moment. Social Distortion? Better.

I pulled a strand of hair in front of my face and examined it for split ends. More than anything, I wished I’d never discovered the
pyxis
. Maybe if it’d gotten lost, I wouldn’t have to worry about any of this. But then there were still the dreams.

I shuddered. My life was overloaded with way too much freakiness at the moment.

After about an hour of staring at my hair and listening to 80s music, I felt a little more calm. I crawled to the edge of the bed and grabbed the letter from my dresser. Maybe I’d misread it and overreacted.

I read through it again, trying to be impartial. I pretended I was a psychiatrist evaluating the letter so I could give my professional opinion about whether the writer was a nutcase or not. It sounded crazy, no doubt about that, but there were a few things I just couldn’t ignore. Mason had muttered in his sleep last night. He had said, “shield.” I couldn’t avoid it any longer. There, in my grandmother’s P.S.:
We knew early on that Mason would be your Shield …

I reread the part about the dreams. A dream had led us to her house, where Mr. Sykes had seen me and subsequently given me this letter. His name was on the list. It all seemed a little too much to explain away as coincidence.

The part that really freaked me out, though, besides the fact that Aunt Dorothy was supposed to be helping me with something and obviously couldn’t, was the part about me
being
the Pyxis. Was it a typo? The
pyxis
was a box. It may not have medicine in it, like the internet said, but Ang and I never read anything about
pyxis
being a person.

Mason was right. I had to see if I could get anything out of Aunt Dorothy. I didn’t have much hope that the white liquid would be the answer, but it was worth a try. Even if it didn’t work, maybe I could catch her in a moment of clarity and get her to tell me something useful, preferably that this was all an elaborate joke.

I removed my earbuds and plodded upstairs to help Mom. At the top of the stairs, I pasted on what I hoped looked like my everything-is-fine face. Worry had my stomach roiling like a cement truck barrel, but I couldn’t even imagine trying to explain any of it to my mom.

During the week, we usually ate leftovers from the café for dinner. But on Saturdays, the café closed at five o’clock and didn’t serve dinner, so Mom always started cooking, and Dad usually made it home early enough to pitch in.

I chopped veggies for a green salad while Mom cubed a small pile of red potatoes and quizzed me from the driver’s manual. In the warmth of the kitchen, chopping produce with my mom like any Saturday afternoon, I could almost imagine life was normal. She opened the oven to check on the pork chops, and the wafting aroma reminded me I hadn’t eaten since the bowl of cereal this morning. My stomach gurgled in anticipation.

It was just me, Mom, and Dad for dinner since Bradley was working. As we ate and talked about mundane things, I watched my parents, wondering if they knew anything about the
pyxis
. I doubted it. Otherwise, they’d probably know that they’d need to fill me on what the hell it was.

After dinner, I busied myself in my room, reorganizing the shoes at the bottom of my closet, stowing clean laundry in my dresser, and hanging up the clothes strewn across my bed. I turned my 80s mix back on and jumped around, dancing, trying to recapture what it felt like when I was just Corinne, resident of Tapestry and wicked-awesome pastry chef, instead of whatever my grandmother’s letter claimed.

When I’d finished all the straightening and cleaning I could do, I flopped across my bed on my belly and buried my face in my folded arms. I replayed the night of the Winter Solstice Festival, shivering on the corner of Main and Wild Rose with Mason. The memory of his kiss still sent sparks through my chest, and I could still remember how I’d wanted that moment to stretch on and on.

A knock at my door just about gave me a heart attack. I sprang to my feet, my heart racing a little, and opened the door.

“Hey.” Mason was wearing dark-wash jeans and a black hoodie with a crackled, abstract design silkscreened across the font. I wanted to reach out and trace the c-shaped strand of hair curling over his forehead. I felt my face flush a little and hoped he didn’t notice.

“Hey, come on in.” I opened the door wider. I glanced around the room quickly to make sure I hadn’t left out anything awkward or embarrassing. “My mom didn’t keep you too long, did she?”

“Nah, we just talked a minute. I don’t mind,” he said, and he gave me a half smile.

I plopped back on my bed and pulled my knees up to my chest. He sank into the plush purple chair next to my dresser.

His face mirrored how drained I felt. I took a deep breath.

“So,” I said. “How’s it feel to be a shield or whatever?”

He snorted. “I have no idea. I don’t feel any different. Shouldn’t I at least get a cool costume or something? I totally dig capes.”

I laughed. “Yeah, you need some tights, too.”

“You feel any different?”

“Not really.” I wrinkled my nose. “Just more stressed about the whole thing.”

“Do you think Mr. Sykes knows anything?”

I shrugged. “Maybe. Might be worth a shot, seeing as how we don’t have a lot of other places to turn. We’ll have to be careful, though.”

He stood, pulled the letter off my dresser, and then returned to the chair and rested his elbows on his knees. As he read it again, his sandy hair fell across his forehead, shadowing his eyes. I knew I should just get over it already, but it was still hard to believe how different he looked. He’d never really had a girlfriend, but I suspected that plenty of girls would be taking notice of him this summer. Sophie seemed occupied with Andy—thank God—but I was sure it wouldn’t be long before somebody showed interest. The thought sent a faint stab of displeasure though my chest.

We spent the next hour dissecting the letter and speculating about how we could have misunderstood any of it. He volunteered to talk to Mr. Sykes again tomorrow. I wouldn’t have time because I had to practice driving, work a four-hour shift at the coffee shop, be home for family dinner, and finish all my weekend homework. I envied Mason’s freedom. He didn’t have to worry about going to school, checking in with his parents, or making curfews.

Mason pulled his phone from his pocket to check a text. “Want to go to the cove with Jesse and Garrett?” he asked.

“Yeah, sure. I’ll text Ang to see if she can meet us.”

Ang texted me back:
Don’t think I can make it. Mom and i r baking for church tomorrow.

I suddenly wanted to back out. The thought of going to the cove with Mason and without Ang felt strange. But I’d sound like a dork if I tried to get out of it now.

Mason and I went upstairs to wait for our ride. A few minutes later, Jesse and Garrett pulled up in front of the house in Garrett’s old Ford extended-cab. Mason and I piled in to the sound of throbbing hip hop. The stereo volume eliminated the possibility of conversation, so I just flicked a wave at the front seat. Garrett gave me a salute in the rearview mirror.

You never knew what music you’d get when you rode with Garrett. He had the broadest musical taste I’d ever encountered in a single individual, which was probably why he was a good fit for the internet radio show. Mason was mostly in charge of the internet and technical stuff, so he wasn’t anywhere near the musical knowledge the other two guys had.

It was a pretty small crowd at the cove, especially for a Saturday night that time of year. Mostly juniors and seniors were there, and a lot of the kids were drinking beer. That wasn’t really my scene, so after a few minutes of hovering around the bonfire with the guys, I drifted back to the path leading to the meadow. The smell of cold, moist soil, pine trees, and sweet grass was like a balm on my stressed brain, and I inhaled deeply a couple of times to soak it in.

When I bent to collect a few pinecones to toss into the fire later, I caught an electric blue flash out of the corner of my eye. I looked up at the sky just as a streak of green light billowed across the stars, followed by an orange glow that pulsed a couple of times before it disappeared.

“Nice,” I murmured, my head tilted back so I could take in the light show. A purple glimmer undulated just above the tree line, and I smiled. Purple was my lucky color, and I was two for two this year: two visits to the cove and two twilight rainbow sightings.

At the far edge of the meadow, I caught a faint white glow. It actually looked like a pulsating cloud of millions of tiny lights. I frowned. That was definitely not part of the twilight rainbow phenomenon. The cloud seemed to bulge out toward me, and my heart thumped uneasily. I blinked hard a couple of times.

Then I smelled it. The spoiled meat, burned rubber scent from my nightmares.

All the air whooshed out of my lungs, I stumbled back a couple of steps, the pinecones falling from my hands. This couldn’t be happening. I sniffed the air again, hoping it was just my imagination. But it was strong enough now to make my eyes water.

I turned to run back to the beach and nearly took Mason out, crashing hard into his chest.

|| 18 ||

“OH MY GOD, DO you smell that?” The words tumbled from me, and my voice shook with panic. I grabbed his arm. “That’s how the fog smells in my dreams. I think it’s coming from over there.” I pointed to the pulsating glow across the meadow.