Pyxis: The Discovery (Pyxis Series) (21 page)

“I’m sure Aunt Dorothy appreciates the company, but we should let her rest now. She’s been through a lot,” Mom said.

I started to protest, but Aunt Dorothy gave a small shake of her head that Mom didn’t see. “Thank you so much for all you’ve done,” she said. “Erin is right. I should get myself to bed. Corinne, would you help me up to my room?”

Mom and Mason said they would clear away the food and load the dishes into the dishwasher, so I followed Aunt Dorothy upstairs. She went slowly, pausing at each step. I knew it would annoy her if I actually took her arm, so I just stuck close by her side in case she stumbled.

“I know we still have much to discuss,” she said once we reached her bedroom. She lowered herself to the bed, and I realized her face was drawn with exhaustion. “You and Mason should return in the morning, and we can continue then. I’ll be fine, dear. Just lock the door on the way out.”

I kissed her cheek and left her alone. Mom offered to take Mason home, but I told her we wanted to walk instead. She gave me an annoying, knowing look, and I realized I could add her to the growing list of people who thought there was something going on between Mason and me. Great. She left, and Mason and I silently straightened the table and started the dishwasher.

We stepped out into the darkness, and I used the spare key to bolt the door behind us. I wasn’t entirely comfortable leaving Aunt Dorothy alone. She’d just barely returned to us, and what if something happened to her? But she seemed okay about staying in the house by herself.

I took in a deep lungful of cool, night air and tilted my head back to look for stars. Hazy clouds obscured all but a handful of the brightest ones. As we entered the deeper darkness beyond Aunt Doris’s neighborhood, Mason reached for my hand. His palm was very warm, and I felt a tiny buzz of electricity pass from his hand to mine. A giddy rush of energy flooded through me.

“I know we’re not … you know,” he said, his voice low.

“It’s okay,” I whispered, and I gripped his hand firmly in mine. Mason and I weren’t officially together in the boyfriend-girlfriend sense, but I couldn’t deny my growing need to be near him.

|| 31 ||

THE NEXT MORNING, MASON came to my house around nine o’clock. I’d already been up for two hours so I could buy Aunt Dorothy’s groceries and some other supplies before we went to her house. It was awfully early for me to be up and ready on a Sunday, but we were eager to get back to Aunt Dorothy’s. I handed him a small bottle of orange juice and a paper napkin with a bagel-and-cream-cheese sandwich wrapped in it.

I longed for Ang’s levelheaded and cheerful presence, but she was at church.

“Bye, I’ll be back later this afternoon!” I hollered down the hall to where my mom was doing laundry.

She poked her head out, and when she saw Mason, her face lit up like a Christmas tree. “Make sure she drives safely, Mason.”

I rolled my eyes and led him to the garage. Like anything would happen in the half mile of the twenty-five mile-per-hour zone between here and Aunt Dorothy’s.

“How’d you sleep last night?” I asked, backing out of the driveway.

“Like a baby,” he said around a mouthful of bagel. “I assume that means you did, too.”

“Yep. Nice for a change. Peaceful nights seem kind of few and far between, these days,” I said. “So you think you’ll get your driver’s permit soon?”

“I’d like to, but that means getting one of my parents to take me to Danton. You know how that goes.”

I nodded. Mason was seriously more mature than his own parents. I thought they were cool and fun when I was younger, but the older I got, the more pathetic they seemed. It was no wonder he’d spent so much time hanging out at our house over the years. My parents might be annoying about some things, but at least they were … parents.

I pulled into Aunt Doris’s driveway, put the Subaru in park, and shut off the engine. I ran up and rang the bell, and Mason and I hauled bags of food, paper products, and other basic supplies into the house. Aunt Dorothy hugged us each in turn as we set bags on the kitchen counter.

“How was your first night back in the house?” I asked.

She looked less exhausted than the previous night, but still entirely too frail for my liking. At least she was dressed in regular clothes instead of the housecoat she wore at the retirement home, and her hair was combed back into her signature braid down her back.

“It’s wonderful to be back,” she said. “And thank you for doing my shopping for me, though I’m sure I could have done it myself.”

I watched her shuffle over to the table to get a check to reimburse me for the purchases, and I wasn’t sure I agreed with her.

Mason and Aunt Dorothy put away the food and supplies while I started making a spinach, cheese, and mushroom quiche. Normally I’d make a pie crust from scratch, but I wanted to get back to our conversation from last night, so I’d bought a frozen, ready-made crust. As I pulled the crust from the bag, I realized that I’d never cooked in this kitchen without my grandmother. I shook my head to silence the thought, and I resumed pulling ingredients from the bags.

While I continued preparing the quiche, Aunt Doris and Mason resumed their places from yesterday at the kitchen table.

“Your friend Angeline,” Aunt Dorothy started. I glanced over my shoulder at her. “She knows she is part of this?”

“Yeah, she knows about the
pyxis
, and she’s seen the list,” I said. “She’s at church, so I’ll have to fill her in later.”

“Until we know who the other Guardian is, she won’t be able to fulfill her role,” Aunt Dorothy said.

“Why is that?” Mason asked.

“The two Guardians must become linked to each other. Ah…” she paused and rubbed her temples, seeming to consider how best to explain. “There is a brief rite they must go through together, which gives them a powerful psychological bond. It’s difficult to imagine if you haven’t experienced it, but, in essence, it gives the two Guardians a certain awareness of each other. It’s a bit like what you’re feeling with my grand-niece, Mason, the way you know when she’s distressed. It also gives them the ability to work cooperatively to protect the convergence.”

Psychological bond? Was she talking ESP?

I put the quiche in the oven, set the timer, and joined them at the table. Aunt Dorothy seemed absorbed in her tea mug for a moment. When she looked up, her eyes had that steely quality I’d seen yesterday when she reprimanded me. I sucked in a shallow breath and held it for a few seconds.

“The two of you will need to perform a similar rite,” she said quietly, and looked back and forth between us. “Afterward, you will be tied together, linked. You’ll be in
syndesmo
, we call it. It’s a vital part of your role as the Pyxis.” She looked at me, and then at Mason. “And your role as the Shield. When the Pyxis is absorbed in using her, ah,
strengths
, she becomes very vulnerable in certain ways. It’s the Shield’s job to protect her during that time.”

Nervousness rippled through me. My strengths?

“Aunt Dorothy?” I said, trying to keep my voice even and whine-free. “I’m sorry, but I just don’t get this at all. Why the need for all the magic and Guardians and such? It all just sounds crazy. I mean
really
crazy. I don’t understand why we need to protect the meadow or the convergence or whatever. Or why it has to be us. What if we don’t want to do it?”

My throat constricted a little as I waited for her reaction. I didn’t want to anger her, but I couldn’t keep ignoring the doubt and disbelief that nagged at me.

“I know it’s a lot to take in, my dear,” she said with about as much patience as I’d ever seen her display. “And frankly, there’s only so much I can explain before you just have to experience it for yourself. I believe I told you already that the convergence is the source of the materials that make the
pyxis
liquids. The botanical material used to make the liquids is extremely rare and valuable. You can imagine, I’m sure, that it would be disastrous to let them fall into the wrong hands.”

“Actually, I really don’t know what the liquids are for. What makes them so valuable?” I said.

“Each has an influence over the emotions, and therefore the actions, of the person who ingests them. They will be quite important for you, my dear, as part of the training that comes after you’re linked with Mason.” She pursed her lips and watched me for a second, almost daring me to push her with more questions.

I slouched a little, realizing the finality in her voice meant she wasn’t going to tell us any more about the
pyxis
. She clearly had her own agenda for what and how much she wanted to reveal.

“Back to the convergence,” she continued. “The convergence is special for other reasons, too. It’s a place where there is a permeability in the fabric of our world. A sort of weak spot between the world we see around us and the world we can’t see. In that other world, every person on earth is vulnerable to whatever inhabits it, whatever controls it.”

My head throbbed a little, and I squeezed my eyes shut for a second. “You’re saying there are, like, two universes?”

“In a manner of speaking,” she said. “Think back to your dreams. In the very vivid and memorable ones, does it not seem that you inhabit a world that is somehow complete in itself? It’s not the same as your waking world, of course. Sometimes it closely resembles our world, and sometimes it seems almost too absurd to understand.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” I said.

“Your dreams are an entry into that other world. In some ways, that world is very much like this one, the world you know. But things happen in that world that could never happen here.”

I remembered what Mason had said about our dreams leaking into our waking lives. “So our dreams aren’t just figments of our imaginations, crazy crap firing between the synapses in our brains when we’re asleep? It’s like our minds are actually inhabiting an alternate universe?”

“Exactly,” she said, pleased with my understanding. I glanced at Mason and suddenly suspected that he already understood all this—that he was just waiting for me to catch up. “A dream is a state of mind in which you’re inhabiting that alternate universe. And the convergence is a physical location where the two universes are especially close to one another. By entering the dream world, you gain access to people’s dreams, in effect, and—”

“If you can get into their dreams, you can basically get into their brains,” I finished for her. Goosebumps spread across my arms. “That’s terrifying.”

“It’s certainly not a thing to be taken lightly. And as to why it has to be you, well, in your case, that’s a matter of lineage. The next Pyxis is always the daughter—or granddaughter, in your case—of the previous one. The Shield is always a male, but it is not passed down through a family line. The Guardians may be male or female, and the guardianships are not passed down, either. But just because the Shield and Guardians are not inherited doesn’t mean they have any more choice in the matter than you do.”

“So what happens that makes someone become a Shield or Guardian?” I asked.

“We don’t know for sure. In the case of the Shield, it’s usually someone who has some relationship with or affinity for the Pyxis.” I tried very hard not to think of everything that had happened between me and Mason, but I felt my face growing hot. I carefully kept my eyes on my great-aunt.

“The Guardians are always people known to the Pyxis,” she continued. “But beyond that we really don’t know how the selection process works. There are certain signs, rather like auras, and Doris and I both observed them between you, Mason, and Angeline many years ago.”

“We know from our dreams that there’s something threatening the convergence, right?” Mason asked. Aunt Dorothy nodded. “Then shouldn’t Corinne and I go through the rite soon?”

“That would be best,” she said. “The sooner the two of you are in
syndesmo
, the better. I do hope the other Guardian reveals him or herself soon. I believe that may be hastened by your linking with Corinne.”

The timer went off, and I pulled the quiche out of the oven.

“So what’s this rite all about?” I asked from the stove.

“We’ll need about three hours, if I recall correctly,” she said, straightening purposefully. “The rite itself takes only a few seconds, but you will need time to recover.”

I glanced at Mason. He looked a lot calmer than I felt.

“Does it hurt?” I asked.

“No, no, but you will feel quite disoriented for a while afterward. Even when you recover consciousness and you’re able to move about normally, it will take many days—weeks—to fully adjust. But there’s no reason we can’t do it today, if you’re both free for the rest of the afternoon.”

“Should we do anything to prepare?” Mason asked.

“We will need the
pyxis
,” she said. “And the two of you will need to be ready to take a little nap until the disorientation subsides.”

I dished up three plates of quiche and brought them to the table. The last thing I wanted to do right now was eat, but it sounded like once we started this rite, I wouldn’t be able to do much of anything for several hours. We ate in silence.

When he finished eating, Mason laid his fork across his empty plate and looked at me. Like so often lately, his hazel eyes reflected a mix of worry and determination. “Are you ready to do this?”

I took a deep breath and nodded. “We might as well get it over with. I’ll have to run home to get the
pyxis
. Do you need anything?”

“No, I’m okay. I’d like to stay here and talk to Aunt Dorothy, if you don’t mind,” he said. I felt the slightest twinge of jealousy, but I said nothing. I rose and cleared our empty plates.

I drove home alone, and, grateful to find the house empty, I retrieved the
pyxis
from the space behind the wall heater, and then changed from my jeans into comfy leggings. I grabbed my favorite fleece blanket, too.

Standing in the doorway, I paused to look around my room. The next time I stood here, I’d be different somehow. I knew I’d be back later that night, but it felt like I was getting ready to leave on a long journey. I took a deep breath, gathered up my things, and went out to the car.