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I STOOD WITH AUNT DOROTHY in the meadow, the sun warming the top of my head and my shoulders. The net Sophie and Ang had cast over the area glittered in my periphery like a mirage that vanished when you looked directly at it. I half expected to feel the soft, clingy brush of cobwebs when I reached through it to pluck an orange flower shaped like a miniature tulip, the blossom nodding on the end of its long stalk like a tiny fairy bell.

“Gather half a dozen of those,” my great-aunt said. She stooped over a large, yellow daisy-like bloom, brushing the petals with her fingertips and murmuring to herself. She pulled just the flower head and placed it in the basket that hung on her elbow.

We’d spent the morning prowling the meadow, Aunt Dorothy instructing me on the actions of the various flowers and plants. There were far more unique botanicals than I’d realized. She’d described well over fifty of them to me, but it wasn’t as simple as remembering one action per plant. Some of them had leaves and stems with entirely different properties than the blooms. My temples throbbed a bit with the strain of concentration, but I forced myself to focus. As she lectured, my great-aunt gathered blooms and plant parts she thought we could use to help Bradley, and I didn’t want to miss any important details.

Ang’s news about Toby kept nagging at me, too. I desperately wanted to believe it was the flu, or food poisoning, or some exotic strain of anything that could be cured by medical treatment. Anything but the dark presence that was sucking the life out of my brother. Was this part of what was building, what would take over Tapestry if we didn’t stop it before winter solstice? I didn’t have to check the date on my phone to know we had less than three weeks.

I dropped the orange flowers into her basket, and then leaned backward, kneading my knuckles into the small of my back. “Why are there only six influences, when there are so many possible combinations of plants?”

“The influences in the pyxis are suitable for nearly any possible scenario,” she said.

“What do you think would happen if we tried to make some new ones?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t even know how to go about that,” she said. “It’s not just a matter of soaking a bunch of flowers in water and storing the solution in a bottle.”

She beckoned me to a football-sized mound of short, tufted grass, and tore off a handful of blades.

“Those will do something for Brad?” I asked.

“I think they may be a good addition,” she said. “They’re said to fortify the solid organs, such as the spleen, liver, and pancreas.” She added the grass to the basket.

I peered into the basket at the rainbow array of botanicals we’d collected. “I never knew that such an apothecary existed right here in Tapestry,” I said. “Who taught you all of this?”

“The Pyxis in the union prior to mine, your great-great-aunt.”

“She was the first here, right? So who taught her?” I’d never probed her about the history of the Tapestry Lake pyramidal unions, but Aunt Dorothy also never seemed eager to talk about it.

“A man. . . . I’m not—” she faltered, and I stared at her, unable to mask my surprise. I’d never heard her so hesitant or unsure. “I wasn’t there, of course. It was much before my time. But a man came here when the first union formed.”

“Did he bring the pyxis?”

“Yes, that I do know.”

“I wonder if he was from one of the other unions,” I mused. I tried to imagine what it would have been like to travel around the world at the turn of the century, well over one hundred years ago. “Must have been some kind of ordeal to get here, if that was the case.”

“Indeed.” She frowned down at the basket on her arm, and I couldn’t read her expression. Confusion? Uncertainty? Maybe she was just absorbed in old memories and mysteries.

“So . . . you don’t know anything else about the man who brought the pyxis?” I ventured.

“I’m afraid I do not know much, my dear.” She was totally dodging me—I knew it.

She sighed, moved to a clump of plants a couple of feet away, and regarded them for a moment. “I believe we have got a good start here.” She patted the basket handle hanging on her arm, her usual brusque manner restored. “Let’s take them home, and I will show you how to make a tincture with them.”

Back at her house, we placed the botanical material we’d collected in a soup pot and added just enough water to cover it, then set the pot on the stove over gentle heat.

“Maybe I should just give Brad the tincture and see what it does,” I said.

Aunt Dorothy pursed her lips, considering. “I think you could use the influences to help drive it to the area of his body where his illness seems most concentrated.”

“If he seems like he’s in pain, should I stop?” My chest tightened as I remembered how he’d winced when I’d tried to probe the blackness inside him.

“That depends. If you sense the illness is receding, it may be worth a bit of pain. If you sense no progress, then best not to cause undue distress.”

I traced the square pattern on the linoleum floor with the toe of my sneaker. “What if Bradley isn’t the only one?” My voice sounded scratchy and tired.

“The only what?”

“You know, not the only one who’s sick because of this evil thing.”

“Well, then we will fight it just as we are with Bradley.”

That wasn’t particularly reassuring, but I took a little comfort in her firm voice and steely look.

We peered into the steaming pot of now-soggy petals, stems, and leaves. The kitchen filled with an aroma reminiscent of freshly cut grass and strong tea. My great-aunt pronounced the mixture sufficiently cooked, and we strained the liquid through a swatch of cheesecloth into a large glass measuring cup. We allowed the pale, dull green liquid to cool for a few minutes, and she produced a tiny glass bottle with a squeeze bulb dropper lid. She added a few drops of vodka to the bottle—a preservative, she said—and filled it the rest of the way with the green liquid. She stored the remaining liquid in a mason jar.

“You’ll drop some of this in a cup of water,” she instructed. “Best if you could get him to take it straight, but that may be difficult to do.”

I nodded, and slipped the dropper bottle into an inner pocket of my bag. She’d warned me not to expect miracles from this attempt to cure Bradley’s illness, but maybe it would work more quickly than she thought.

When I closed Aunt Dorothy’s front door behind me and started down the walkway, my stomach hollowed at the thought of going home to an empty house. Mom was in Danton with Bradley and Dad would still be at the café. I pulled my phone out of my bag and dialed Ang.

“Hey, are you at home?”

“Yeah, come on over.” She sounded uncharacteristically droopy.

“What’s wrong?”

“Toby. He’s not . . . ” She stopped when her voice wavered. “He isn’t doing any better.”

I thought of the glass vial tucked in my bag.

“I might be able to help him,” I said. I filled her in on Bradley, and my marathon apothecary apprentice session with my great-aunt. “I don’t know if Toby is being affected by the same kind of thing that’s in Brad, but when I go to the hospital, I’ll try to find out.”

“Oh, thank you, Corinne.” She was full-on crying now. Tears swelled in my throat, but I swallowed them back.

“Of course. I’ll do whatever I can,” I said.

“Did you hear about Hannah and Genevieve?” Ang said, still sniffing a little.

I snorted. “Oh no, what have Sophie’s minions done now?”

“No, nothing like that. I heard they’re sick. And it kind of sounds like what Toby has.”

“What? When did this happen?” The dread that seemed to have taken up permanent residence behind my breastbone ballooned and crept through me like a storm cloud.

“Like, yesterday.”

“Are they still in Tapestry, or did they get moved to Danton, too?” I asked.

“They’re still here, but I heard if they’re not showing any improvement by tomorrow, they’ll have to go, too.”

Maybe Aunt Dorothy should have given me a bigger bottle of tincture.

When I got to Ang’s house, we sat, side by side, with our backs resting against the foot of her bed. Her laptop rested across my thighs. I navigated to the pyramidal union website. I logged into the Pyxis message board and scanned the conversation threads. There were a few new messages under the one I’d started about Harriet. I bit my lips and read through them, hoping someone had come up with a way to control a false Pyxis, but the messages reported nothing new.

Hope seemed to sink down through me and disappear into the ground. I realized I’d been counting on the other unions helping us through the next couple of weeks and the solstice, or at least offering a plan, advice, anything. But we would be on our own. My stomach twisted.

I added a message about Bradley and his illness, not sure if this counted as a convergence “breach” or what.

I leaned my head back against the bed, eyes closed, thinking for a moment. Then I added a message to the end of the conversation.

Do you think there might be some way I could protect the rest of my union against Harriet’s influence? Like giving them a daily dose of the white influence or something?

A response from Ione, the Rome Pyxis, appeared a few seconds later.

It may have no effect because the rectification influence works to neutralize an already-applied influence, but certainly won’t hurt them.

“Bleh, that’s true,” I muttered. “It probably won’t work.”

“How will I know if Harriet is trying to influence me?” Ang asked.

I scowled at the monitor. “By the time you know, it probably will be too late. But I know there’s something we can do. We’ll have to stay close and watch out for each other until we figure it out.”

I tapped an irritated rhythm against the casing of the laptop. I wanted to throw it at the wall. I knew a solution to all of this existed, but it was like a downy feather floating through the air that I couldn’t quite catch. I’d reach for it, think I had it in my grasp, and then it would slip through my fingers only to taunt me again a few inches away.

“It’s really freaking me out, Corinne,” Ang said. “I’m jumping at every little sound and constantly looking over my shoulder.”

Some of my irritation drained away as I took in my friend’s anxious frown. I stopped drumming my fingers. “I’m sorry. I’ll come up with something, I promise. And in the meantime, I’m going to keep an eye on all of you.”

“But there are three of us. You can’t be everywhere at once.”

“No, but I have the syndesmo link with all of you. If she influenced you, I think I’d feel it. If nothing else, you might be suddenly gone from my mind. Or something. I don’t know. I’m sure something would feel different.” My mind flashed to Zane, to feeling the strand of Mason’s energy fluttering across my hand. “Okay, don’t freak out, but there actually is a way I can check on you guys,” I said. “In the dream world. While you’re sleeping, I can find you there and make sure you’re okay.”

“Whoa. How’d you figure that out?”

“Zane showed me.”

Ang eyed me. “Huh. Did he show you anything else?”

“No, not really,” I said. I tried to keep my gaze steady, but finally broke. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Just want to make sure there’s not something else you should tell me.”

Heat prickled up my back. “There’s not. I promise!” I held up my hands in a show of innocence. I hoped I wasn’t blushing.

“Is everything okay with Mason?”

I gave her a wide-eyed look of annoyance.

Ang giggled. “Okay, I believe you.”

Late that night, I lay in my dark room with my eyes closed. I let my mind drift for a moment, relaxing into pre-sleep limbo. Just before I crossed over from conscious thought to dreaming, I narrowed my focus to the cove. Not my memory of it, but the cove that existed in the hypercosmic realm. In my mind, it was more a sensation—the dark cold of night, faint illumination of stars, and a caressing sea of gossamer strands—than a physical place.

I opened my eyes and shifted my weight in the sand beneath my feet. Unfocusing my gaze and wrapping my arms around my ribs, I thought of my best friend. Her blonde curls, blushing cheeks, green irises flecked with brown. The way her bedroom always smelled faintly of the lavender laundry detergent her mom used. The way she giggled whenever anyone said something a little naughty. The tears sliding down her cheeks as she cried with me at my grandmother’s memorial service.

The sea of faintly glowing threads surrounded me, waved gently past me. My feet swung through empty space. It wasn’t the strands moving, it was me. I kept my head down, my eyes on my arms folded across my middle, to stave off vertigo.

When the sensation of movement ceased, I raised my eyes, and one of the threads seemed to beckon to me. I grasped it with feather-light pressure and “read” it, the way Zane had taught me. No doubt it belonged to Angeline. Relieved to find she was still safe from Harriet’s influence, I let it slip away and returned my focus inward.

I knew it would be easy to find Mason’s thread of subconscious. I’d save it ‘til last. I nearly grimaced when I thought of trying to locate Sophie’s, but then remembered our last conversation, the raw anger and sadness on her face, the vulnerability and trust it cost her to cry in front of me, and ultimately the steel core of determination when she pushed the heavy past aside. I hoped I could do the same. I understood why she’d treated me the way she had. But the sting of her cruelty over the years would take time to fade. If it ever did.

I tried to see her behavior in a new way, to understand from her point of view. She punished me because she needed someone to blame for her pain. She acted tough because she didn’t want anyone to mess with her. It felt like Brad was being disloyal to me, but it was no wonder, really, that my brother was drawn to her. That lots of guys were. Sure, she could be scary and downright horrible, but I had to admit, she possessed a survivor’s strength and I-will-not-be-messed-with attitude that had its own undeniable magnetism.

A strand curled itself around my forearm with its delicate, electric touch, and it lifted me from my reverie. I’d found it. Sophie’s thread of subconscious. I gaped down at it. A thread had never reached out to me this way, as if it were a living tendril that knew me and sought me out. I unwrapped it from my arm with a gentle tug, and it wove itself over my palm and around my fingers. A faint pulse of energy vibrated against my skin. I knew without reading it that Sophie was safe, but for some reason I didn’t want to let it go.

I drifted with Sophie for . . . I wasn’t sure how long. Time was somewhat meaningless here because nothing changed to mark its passage. Even my body was too light and hollow, a borrowed shell that wasn’t quite mine. Almost as if I could spirit myself out of it, and glide with the threads on the invisible current that carried them.

I blinked hard.

This was what Zane had warned me about, the temptation of losing yourself here. My pulse lurched when I realized how easily I could have stayed, drifting. I looked down. Sophie’s thread was already untangling itself from my hand.

I found and checked Mason’s thread quickly, then brought myself back to the cove and solid ground. I dropped my arms to my sides and filled my lungs with cool night air. Some of Sophie’s determination filled me, fortifying my body and my mind. I imagined Bradley, weak and pale in Danton, and my friends, defenseless against a dark force we didn’t fully understand. My fingernails dug into my palms. I’d had enough.

I was tired of the anxious suspense of Harriet’s inevitable next attack. No more waiting. It was time to find her.