|| 18 ||

THE BLEACH AND MEDICINE SMELL of the hospital was faint, but enough to bring a wave of dread that poured through me. I’d had enough of this smell when Bradley was sick the first time. Walking down the gray linoleum hallways was like a bad dream, a remnant of a memory I’d be happy to forget.

In a room, Brad lay hooked up to an IV, and Mom sat on the edge of a chair pulled close to his bed. He saw us first, and raised his fingers in greeting. He didn’t look unwell, aside from the dark rings under his eyes. I watched him over Mom’s shoulder as she embraced me.

As my parents talked about what the doctors did and didn’t know, I sat on the edge of Brad’s bed, next to his thigh. I gave him a tiny smile. “Hey, how’re you doing?”

“Okay.” His voice was soft, but not weak. “Trying to keep Mom from freaking the eff out.”

I nearly smiled, and I glanced over at my parents. When my gaze returned to Bradley, he’d closed his eyes. I hesitated a moment, and then I reached out with my mind, a tentative probe, down to his chest. I reached into his body the way I’d done with the black cloud in our first drill in the meadow. I searched for something, anything, that might let me know what to do or understand what was wrong with him. I closed my eyes and reached more energetically into the center of his chest, sensing something familiar. It was lodged just under the lower part of his rib cage, on the right side. It had the same putrid, malevolent feel as the dark fog. When I tried to probe it, Bradley drew a convulsive breath.

“Does it hurt?” I asked, quiet, so only he would hear.

He nodded, and his face pinched.

I pulled back a little, skirting the edges of the thing that did not want me manipulating it. I was tempted to try using a blend of influences, but what if I hurt him, instead? I tried to memorize the feel and vibration of the foreign presence within him. Maybe Aunt Dorothy could help me find some blooms in the meadow that could help him.

A willowy, blonde female doctor about my parents’ age came in and started talking to them about white blood cell counts. I formed a calming swirl of influences and pushed just a bit of it to Bradley, and he sighed a deep, slow breath.

Dad and I needed to get back to Tapestry because I had school in the morning and he had to open the café. We left a bag containing changes of clothes, books, a blanket, and a few other items for Mom and Bradley, and left them to drive home.

In the van, I texted an update to Ang, and she sent back a sweet, sympathetic message.

I think I can help him, but I’m afraid of hurting him, I said to Mason.

So the cancer is back?

My breath caught in my throat. Pretty sure. They’re going to do more tests. A tear slid down my cheek, and I dabbed at it with my sleeve.

So sorry, Corinne. We will find a way to fight it.

It was late by the time we got back to Tapestry, and the house was too still that night without Mom and Bradley. Exhaustion rendered my mind numb and my limbs heavy and useless, but when I went to bed I couldn’t sleep.

Mason. . . ? I whispered through our link. I didn’t want to wake him, but I longed for the comfort of his presence. When a minute or two passed and he didn’t respond, I figured he must be asleep.

I thought about entering the hypercosmic realm and losing myself in the sea of glowing filaments—maybe Zane would be there—but more than an escape, I really needed true rest.

I lay in bed staring at the ceiling for another hour, thinking about what Mr. Sykes had said, about how people who are of weak mind or body are vulnerable. My brother’s body had been weakened by leukemia, and now some unknown evil had taken up residence inside him and brought on the return of his illness.

I really needed to talk to Aunt Dorothy ASAP.

* * *

The next morning, when I got to school, I found Angeline sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of our locker. She held her phone in both hands in front of her and stared at the overly buffed tiles with an expression so forlorn, I just wanted to sit next to her and pet her golden hair.

“Ang, what is it?” I dropped my bag and sat down in front of her.

“Toby,” she said. “He’s in the hospital. I’m sorry; I know Brad’s not doing well, but I’m just really worried about Toby, too.”

“What happened?” I scrunched my eyes, mirroring her worried expression.

“I don’t know. They think it’s some kind of bad virus. He’s running a really high temperature, and he’s got muscle spasms and doesn’t want to eat anything.”

I frowned. “Just out of nowhere?”

“Yeah, I guess. I just found out.” Her voice caught and she paused. “Apparently he woke up in the night and he was delirious from the fever.”

“It’s probably a bad case of the flu,” I said, but my stomach lurched. Was it really just a virus?

“This time of year? It’s not flu season. . . . It’s practically summer.”

“Well, yeah, but you can get the flu any time of year,” I said, trying to sound reassuring. “I’ll go with you to visit him after school, if you want.”

She gave me a small, grateful smile, a bit of light returning to her eyes. I wanted to return her smile, but she’d see through it. I pretended to search for something in my bag, alarm swirling through my chest. No reason to scare her before I had any proof.

“Okay.” Ang combed her fingers through the ends of her hair. “Maybe he’ll be back home by this afternoon. Anything new about Bradley this morning?”

I shook my head. “Not so far. They’re putting a rush on all of his tests. But I’m going to talk to Aunt Dorothy later. I think I can help him, I just have to figure out how. I don’t want to do anything to make him worse.”

The first bell rang, and we both stood up.

“I want to go with you,” Ang said. “If I can visit Toby, we can go by there first, and then Aunt Dorothy’s.”

“ ‘Kay, I’ll catch up with you at lunch.” I gave her a quick hug, and we took off in opposite directions for first hour.

I worried my way through the rest of the morning, and spent part of lunch talking to Brad’s teachers to make sure they knew he was in the hospital. Not that I really needed to do it. Mom had already talked to one of the vice principals, and the Tapestry gossip mill would have taken care of it for us anyway, but I had this strange fear that people at school would forget about him or something. Kind of ironic, considering how his antics usually embarrassed me.

During fifth hour, the antsy energy buzzing through Tapestry High reached such a pitch even I noticed it when a couple of seniors raced down the main hallway in a stolen shopping cart. Right, we had only two weeks left until summer break. And only a little more than that until the solstice.

After school, Ang informed me we’d have to skip the visit with Toby after school because the doctor at the Tapestry clinic still hadn’t identified the illness, and he didn’t want to risk exposing more people. Ang bent over her phone for several minutes, composing another long text to Toby.

She looked up. “Think we should invite Sophie?”

Oh yeah, Sophie. “You’re right, we should.” I sighed, pulled out my phone, and texted Sophie. I shook my head. It seemed stupid to be texting when either I or Ang could talk to her through our links, but Sophie had been blocking me and unresponsive with Ang. Just like I expected, she wasn’t holding up her end of our deal. “But she can find her own way over.”

We stopped by Mason’s house to pick him up, and then were on our way to Aunt Dorothy’s.

When we arrived, Mr. Sykes was reclining in one of the club chairs in the living room, with his bad leg up on an ottoman and his cane hooked over the arm of the chair. Aunt Dorothy sat on the sofa holding a steaming mug of tea in both hands. Ang and I joined her, and Mason took the other club chair, where he leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. His “thinking pose,” as I’d come to call it.

“Looks as though we’re a Guardian short,” Mr. Sykes said, and he winked at Angeline.

“She knows we’re here,” I said. “She’s still blocking me, and pretty much ignoring us.”

Aunt Dorothy tsked and pressed her lips together. “Well, perhaps she will show up yet. Have you smoothed things over with her like we discussed, Corinne?”

I wanted to defend myself, to explain how difficult Sophie was. Why give her another chance to shoot me down? I swallowed the plaintive words before they could escape. “No, I haven’t. I will soon.”

Aunt Dorothy seemed satisfied by this, or at least she didn’t want to pursue it now. “I spoke to your father about Bradley a few moments ago,” she said. “I understand you saw him last night?”

I nodded, and then I recounted how I’d searched for the source of his illness.

“I had to stop,” I said. “It was hurting him, and I was afraid to do any more.”

I reached for the afghan folded over the arm of the sofa and smoothed its soft fringe. Was the dark thing inside Bradley bigger today? Was it causing him more pain? I focused on my great-aunt. I needed some good news. Anything.

“I believe Harriet is behind this.” Aunt Dorothy looked down into her mug, still as a statue for a moment. “To understand why, I must explain a few things.” She set her mug on the oak side table and folded her hands in her lap. I shifted on the sofa so I could watch her face as she spoke.

“You are aware of the possibility of something slipping through the convergence and attacking or poisoning someone,” she continued. “But I think that an unlikely explanation in Bradley’s case. You see, when we are this near the summer solstice, the convergence is at its least permeable. We believe this has something to do with the botanicals that grow near it, and the fact that they are at their most vibrant this time of year. Their vitality, in turn, gives you a surge of strength.”

She nodded at me, and I raised my eyebrows in question. “But I don’t feel stronger,” I said.

“That’s likely because you have had only a few weeks as Pyxis, and so you have very little basis for comparison.” She gave me a shrewd, narrow-eyed stare. “When the dead of winter arrives, you most definitely will know the difference.”

A chilly shiver raised goose bumps along my arms.

“So you think that whatever is harming Brad came through Harriet Jensen rather than directly through the convergence?” Mason said.

“I believe so,” she said.

“Yes, we have a theory about that, too,” Mr. Sykes spoke up. His bushy eyebrows knit together in concern. “As the false Pyxis, her abilities develop alongside Corinne’s, though always to a lesser extent. We believe that as Corinne becomes stronger the nearer we draw to the summer solstice, it only makes sense that the false Pyxis would become stronger in parallel.”

I started to say something about Zane’s explanation of the false Pyxis, but snapped my mouth shut.

A weight settled in my chest, crowding my lungs. If this theory was correct, Harriet would become more and more troublesome during the next few weeks. I glanced at Ang and Mason. I should have tried harder to get Sophie here. Despite the problems between us, I couldn’t leave her vulnerable to Harriet’s influence.

“What can I do for Bradley?” I asked, pushing away thoughts of the dangers to my union. At this moment, I needed to focus on saving my brother. “Are there any plants in the meadow that could help him?”

“Yes, I would like you to try a combination of botanicals and influences,” Aunt Dorothy said.

“You’ll help me, right?” I asked. “I don’t want to do something wrong.”

“Absolutely. I have been meaning to teach you about the plants so you will understand their actions and be able to use them on your own.”

“That would be great.” I let out a half breath I didn’t realize I’d held.

“And I will coach you on how best to approach healing him.”

“What do you think the chances are, that . . . ” I swallowed hard. “That it will . . . work?”

“I wish I knew, my dear,” Aunt Dorothy said. She patted my hand in a brusque gesture. “We will do our absolute best.”

We arranged our next drill session, and then Ang, Mason, and I stood to leave. On our way to the door, Aunt Dorothy caught my arm. “You must address this rift with Sophie,” she said. “Do not put it off, Corinne.”

I sighed and nodded. She was right, of course. I couldn’t delay the confrontation any longer. I asked Ang to drop me off at Sophie’s house.