Poison

by Molly Cochran

  “What do you think,” I answered dryly. Since it was common knowledge that I was the school leper, I figured she’d get my drift.

  Verity blushed as she placed her napkin on her lap in preparation for chowing down on the radishes and cucumber slices on her plate. “We need to talk,” she said in her usual breathy whisper.

  “So talk,” I said, taking a bite of my cheeseburger.

  “Are you really going to eat that?” Verity asked, looking queasy.

  “No, I’m going to smear it all over my body, and then I plan to swim the English Channel.”

  “All right, all right,” Becca said, leveling her soulful brown eyes at me. “Katy, are you okay?” She took my hand. I started to pull away, but I decided not to because I knew it wasn’t just a gesture. “We came to your room earlier, and you were out cold on your bed.”

  “Maybe I was asleep,” I suggested. “It’s been known to happen.”

  “But we couldn’t wake you up,” Verity said.

  “So?”

  This, I admit, was bravado. Actually, I’d spent the previous couple of hours walking through a Moroccan pillow into a street bazaar in Fez. Ever since Morgan had shown me how to walk through objects, I’d been practicing. So far I’d gone to a Native American powwow through a feathered dream catcher, to a hippie commune through a beaded lamp, and, most surprisingly, to a nineteenth-century English drawing room, where some awful woman kept screaming at her daughter to sit up straight.

  I wanted to see how far I could go with this new skill. Of course, my body wouldn’t be very active while I was visiting these places with my mind. I guessed I’d look pretty inert to the casual observer, but there usually weren’t any observers, so what did it matter? Also, it was a lot more fun than studying all the time.

  “We thought maybe you were drunk.”

  “Right. Thanks, Verity,” I said. “As supportive as ever.”

  Becca looked down, blushing, but Verity got all steely, which was funny, considering how timid she was. It was like one of those cartoons where the mouse squared her shoulders and marched off to face the cat.

  “I really thought you did it,” she said. “Zapped Summer, I mean.”

  “So did everyone else,” I said. “With no proof at all.”

  “That’s just it. I thought I had proof.”

  I put down my burger. “What are you talking about?”

  “I went into Summer’s room a couple of days after it happened,” Verity said.

  That would have been after I’d been there with Peter. “Why?”

  “I thought maybe I could help you. With a defense or something.” Now she blushed. “You see, sometimes I can . . . I can sense things.”

  Right, I thought. Verity claimed to have sensed plants screaming as they were being harvested. “Like what?” I asked, in what I admit may not have been a very respectful tone of voice.

  “Like . . . ” Verity took a deep breath. “Like the fact that those girls lost their souls.”

  “Lost their whats?” Sometimes Verity was so vague and inarticulate that you couldn’t tell what she was talking about.

  “Well, maybe not lost, exactly. It’s more like their souls were pulled out of them.”

  “Pulled . . . ” I couldn’t get my mouth to close long enough to form more words.

  “Out of them,” Becca finished for me.

  “I could see their traces,” Verity said. “Well, not see, exactly . . . ”

  “Omigod,” I said, finally understanding. “You’re a scenter.”

  “Not yet,” Verity protested. “That’s why I didn’t say anything. My parents don’t want me to tell people about this talent until it’s more developed.”

  “But you . . . you saw Summer’s soul?”

  “Not saw, exactly—”

  “Okay, okay,” I interrupted. “Whatever. Where did they go?”

  “That way, I think.” She pointed vaguely out the cafeteria’s north-facing windows. “I couldn’t follow the traces for long.”

  “So you don’t know what happened to them?” I asked.

  She shook her head.

  “There was nothing else? No other traces?”

  “Just fish,” she said. “It’s like someone had brought a lot of dead fish into the room.”

  That had been me, of course, in the garbage can where I’d hidden after dumping out the oyster shells that had filled it.

  “And one other thing,” Verity said after a long pause. “Although I don’t know if it means anything.”

  “What was it?”

  Verity looked embarrassed. “It was an image I got. A picture.”

  “A picture?”

  “Or maybe it was a dream. Or something I saw in a book. See, that’s why my parents don’t allow me to—”

  “For God’s sake, what was it?” I demanded. Sometimes Verity’s dithering could drive you crazy.

  Her head swiveled, panic-stricken, between me and Becca. “It was . . . ” She lowered her eyes. “It was toys,” she said at last.

  “Toys?” Becca looked at me. “Summer’s soul went to Toyland?”

  “I knew I shouldn’t have said anything,” Verity said bitterly.

  “What kind of toys?” I prompted.

  “I don’t know. All kinds. Old toys. A jack-in-the-box. A doll with a lace collar. I don’t know.”

  “Think.”

  “I can’t, okay? That’s all I can do. These . . . things I get, the pictures, whatever . . . they’re like ribbons or something, floating through my mind. I can see them for a second, and then they float away again. And then I don’t know if I ever really saw them at all. And it wasn’t really seeing in the first place.”

  “Okay,” I said. I’d never met a scenter before, but it seemed to be a really amorphous talent. Perfect for Verity. “So you don’t know if you really experienced it or not.”

  “That’s it,” Verity said, seeming to have grown a little calmer. “Maybe when I get older, I’ll understand it better.” She smiled hopefully.

  “But why didn’t you tell Miss P?” I wanted to know. “Even that much might have helped.”

  Verity made a face. “I told you,” she said. “I thought you’d done it!”

  “What? Taken their souls?”

  “Yes. I thought that by keeping quiet I was helping you.”

  There was a long silence. “Wow,” Becca said finally. She turned to me. “And I thought you were scary.”

  “Anyway,” Verity went on after chewing her cucumber slice exactly fifty times and then dabbing her lips with her napkin, “that’s why I didn’t come around while you were having that trouble. I’m sorry.”

  “Me too,” Becca said. “Not that I thought you’d done it or anything. But my mother . . . ”

  “I get it,” I said. Most parents weren’t perfect, but Becca’s mom was something else. Wherever there was blame, Livia Fowler could be counted on to stick it on someone. After growing up with her, Becca was lucky not to have been a raving lunatic. As it was, Becca had been pulling out her hair since she was twelve. Until last year she wore a red wig—because her mother liked red hair. We’d finally burned the thing one night after Becca had decided to face the world as she was, blond and semi-bald. And with me as her friend.

  Her hair started to grow back after that. In fact, Becca was so beautiful that her short hair became her trademark and something other girls copied. But I think what really saved her was that, after the wig-burning incident, Becca was allowed to board at school. The farther away from Livia Fowler you got, the healthier you became.

  “Yeah. It’s really hard to go up against Clytemnestra,” she said. I could tell that it really troubled Becca to admit her fear of her mother. “But when I heard that you’d moved back into the dorms, I had to see you.”

  “And I don’t think you did it anymore either,” Verity chimed in.

  “Oh?” I asked. “What changed your mind?”

  “Miss P. I finally did go to see her. With my parents, of cou
rse.”

  The light dawned. “To turn me in,” I guessed.

  Verity turned bright red. “It was a matter of justice,” she said. “I wrestled with my conscience.”

  “Good for you,” I said, wondering why I bothered with her.

  “My dad says that the truth is always the best way to see that justice is done.”

  Verity’s father was the attorney for Ainsworth School. “Good for him,” I said acidly.

  “So what did Miss P say?” Becca asked, trying to diffuse the situation. “About the losing of the souls or whatever?”

  “Nothing. But she said that magic of that magnitude couldn’t have been performed by a student, no matter how gifted,” Verity parroted.

  “I got that too,” I said.

  “Besides, the school board has decided to drop the investigation.”

  “What?” I coughed. “You’ve waited till now to tell me this?

  “I really shouldn’t be telling you at all,” Verity said. “Miss P will probably—”

  “Tell me!” I demanded.

  “Well, they’ve decided to go with the findings of the non-adepts.”

  This was news. “Non-adepts” was the traditional term for cowen, or normal people. In this case, they were the families, doctors, and lawyers of the coma girls.

  “Why?” I asked. “They wouldn’t know anything about the magic that knocked them all out. We don’t even know.”

  “That’s the point,” Verity said. “The girls and their families aren’t witches. It’s better that we don’t even get involved.”

  “Better for whom?” I wanted to know. Not the girls, certainly. But I knew these weren’t Verity’s thoughts. They had come from her father, and the school’s board of directors.

  “She’s right,” Becca said. “It wouldn’t do any good to tell the families that magic was the cause. They wouldn’t believe it, anyway.”

  “And there’s something else,” Verity said. She looked from Becca to me. “By the way, you can’t say anything about this.”

  Becca crossed her heart.

  “You, too.”

  I dutifully complied, even though I didn’t believe that crossing your heart meant anything.

  Verity lowered her voice. “Apparently there were drugs involved.”

  “No way!” Becca shouted.

  “Shh. They found a jar of some weird South American herb in Summer’s room, and traces of the same thing in the girls’ blood.”

  “A South American herb?” I asked.

  “Apparently used for weight control,” Verity said. “People make tea out of it and drink it.”

  “But . . . that’s not a drug,” I said.

  “It’s classified as one,” Verity explained primly.

  “But it doesn’t count,” I hissed. “Is that what they’re saying caused four healthy people to lapse into comas? Drinking diet tea?”

  “I guess it could happen,” Becca reflected.

  “Oh, for crying out loud.” I stood up. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Maybe,” Verity said. “But that’s the position of the families. They’ve stopped the tests and blood analyses. And they’re not going to sue the school.”

  So now Summer, A.J., Suzy Dusset, and Tiffany had been branded as drug fiends and abandoned by their own kind.

  “That’s cowen for you,” Becca said.

  Verity shrugged. “The board said it was up to them.”

  “So everyone’s decided to let sleeping dogs lie.”

  “And let Summer live out her life as a vegetable,” I said.

  It wasn’t fair. Those Muffy girls weren’t my friends by any stretch of the imagination, but they deserved better than to be ignored and left to die. “I can’t believe Miss P would let this happen,” I said.

  “Hey, it’s better than when everyone was blaming you, isn’t it?” Becca said.

  “Don’t you see, it’s not just about me!” I turned to Verity. “You know how wrong this is,” I said.

  She refused to meet my eyes.

  “Is it because they’re cowen?” I asked. “What about that stuff about truth and justice?”

  “But their own people won’t help them,” Becca said. “Why should we?”

  “Because they’re human beings,” I said.

  Verity stood up. “I have to get to class.”

  “Me too,” Becca said. They picked up their trays. “We’ll talk later,” Becca mouthed.

  • • •

  I sat there with my thoughts for a while. I was exonerated. It was just a matter of time before it became public knowledge that Summer and the others had been ingesting foreign substances for recreational use and had suffered the consequences of their wrongdoing. By next year no one would even remember them very well. They weren’t nice girls, after all. They didn’t have many friends, except for one another. No one would miss them much.

  My eyes filled with tears.

  • • •

  That night, while I was putting away my laundry, I came across the box that had contained the worthless “clues” to the Muffy incident that I’d collected from Summer’s room. All that remained inside were the two broken pieces of brown plastic. When my fingers brushed against them, a feeling like lightning passed through me.

  Taking a deep breath, I picked the pieces up slowly and, making sure whatever vibrations they carried wouldn’t catch me unaware, I carried them to my bed. I’m not going to see anything or feel anything unless I want to, and until I’m ready, I reminded myself. That had been my mantra ever since I’d first learned to control my psychometry, and the reason why this ability hadn’t driven me insane. Still, the vibes in these pieces were so strong that the plastic nearly jumped out of my hand.

  Calm down, I told myself. Breathe. Get ready. Okay.

  I concentrated on the smooth, lightweight fragments in my hand. I felt a sensation like movement flinging me through time and space. It was as if traces of light were shooting out behind me as I shot away at warp speed.

  And then, abruptly, I was looking at the same green vista I’d seen in my earlier vision. The girl was there again too, but she was older this time, maybe thirteen or fourteen, and dressed in an elaborate costume of green brocade, although she paid no attention whatever to her odd clothing as she ran through the meadow laughing, her waist-length hair flying freely behind her.

  In the background the doors of wattle-and-daub cottages opened slightly to reveal the awestruck faces of young girls, hardly breathing as they watched the exotic, beautiful creature among them, until their parents yanked them away and shut the doors.

  Again vultures circled in the sky above her, but this time she seemed to be playing a game with them, although it was obviously not a game the vultures were enjoying. Every time the ungainly birds swooped down on her, she waited, poised, until the last possible moment, and then vanished from under their noses.

  A moment later she reappeared, laughing, taunting the squawking birds of prey that had terrified her as a child. Again and again they swooped down with their long talons, only to lock onto thin air.

  She’s learned to amuse herself with her tormentors, I thought. And although I still didn’t know who she was, where she was, or why I was seeing her, I couldn’t help but give her a little silent cheer.

  But those watching her from behind the almost-closed cottage doors did not cheer for her. She’ll be punished, they said. You wait and see. This girl’s life will be short.

  CHAPTER

  •

  SEVENTEEN

  I wasn’t looking forward to working that night, because Bryce and Peter were both going to be at Hattie’s—no doubt having a great time with each other while I did most of the work—but a job’s a job. I had to go whether I was in the mood or not. Besides, I was hoping to talk to Hattie alone if I could, so I showed up a half hour early. Luckily, she was in the kitchen when I arrived, making the dough for her famous cheese biscuits.

  “Can I help? I asked, putting on my apron.

&
nbsp; “Just in time,” she said cheerfully as she pulled out two big sheet pans. It made me almost pathetically happy that she’d accepted my offer of assistance. “Finish the biscuits while I write out the menu,” she said. “Then we’re going to need a couple of pies.”

  “My pleasure,” I said.

  “Now, what’s on your mind?”

  I didn’t know how she could always tell. “Are you sure you want to hear?”

  She sighed. “No, but go ahead.”

  I rolled out the biscuits. “It’s about the girls at school who collapsed.”

  She nodded.

  “They’re Muffies . . . er, that is, non-adepts.”

  “I know.”

  “Well, from what I hear, their doctors have pretty much given up on them.”

  “And how would you hear anything?” she asked truculently. Hattie didn’t exactly regard students as equals. Nevertheless, she was Whitfield’s high priestess and I needed her help, so I barreled on.

  “The school’s position is to go along with the judgment of the girls’ families and attorneys.”

  “Which is?”

  “Which is that Summer and the others brought on their condition by drinking some South American tea.”

  The barest hint of a scowl played at the corners of Hattie’s mouth.

  “But that can’t be it,” I continued. “There was magic involved. Heavy magic. I watched them fall, Hattie.”

  “All right,” she said. “Look what you’re doing to the biscuits.”

  I guess I’d forgotten myself. I’d rolled the dough so hard that it was now paper thin and oozing over the edge of the counter. “Sorry,” I said, gathering it up again.

  “Now they’ll be tough.”

  I ignored her. “Anyway, Verity Lloyd admits to being a scenter, and she thinks that someone took Summer’s soul—”

  “I know,” Hattie said.

  I was about to go on with my tirade, but her words stopped me short. “You do?”

  “Penelope Bean—Miss P, your assistant headmistress—told me about it last night.”

  “Oh.” I should have known. Miss P wouldn’t let any of the students down, at least not without a fight. But the fact that they were Muffies made things a lot harder. “What are we going to do?” I whispered.