Pyxis: The Discovery (Pyxis Series) (20 page)

Aunt Dorothy sat at the kitchen table while I filled the kettle and put it on the stove. I looked through cabinets for a box of tea and finally found some jasmine in the pantry. I sat down across from her to wait for the water to boil.

“I don’t even know where to begin,” I said. “So much has happened, and I have so many questions for you.”

“Maybe we should get your friend Mason over here before I begin with any explanations,” she said. “Do you think he might be available? Angeline, too.”

“Mason is probably waiting for me to call. Ang is at some church thing, but I’ll send her a text.” I dug my phone from my bag and called Mason. He answered on the first ring.

“Hey, it’s me,” I said. “I’m at Aunt Dorothy’s. Can you come over?”

“Yeah, I’ll leave now. I’m walking, so it’ll be a few.”

“That’s okay, we’re not going anywhere. See you soon,” I said, and we hung up.

I got up to take the kettle off the burner and pour us each a mug of tea. “He’ll be here as soon as he can.” I handed her a mug and returned to my spot at the table.

She wrapped her hands around her mug and blew across the top of it. Her eyes roved over the kitchen, and for the first time, it dawned on me that she’d never lived there without my grandmother.

“How does it feel to be home?” I asked, my voice and smile tentative. I couldn’t take my eyes from her. It was hard to believe we were sitting across from each other, just like we used to.

“Oh….” She sighed. “I’m so glad to be back here with you all. But I suppose it’ll take some adjusting. The house feels bigger than I remember.”

“We didn’t do much to the house after … after Grandma died.” I looked down at the table. I tried to swallow the lump growing in my throat. I didn’t want to spoil her homecoming, but it was hard to see Aunt Dorothy here and know that Grandma Doris was gone. I’d always thought of this as my grandmother’s kitchen, since Dorothy wasn’t much of a cook. It didn’t seem right that the two of us could be sitting here without her.

“It is very strange that she is not here, isn’t it?” Aunt Dorothy said quietly.

I nodded and looked up to see a single tear roll down her soft, wrinkled cheek. I’d never seen her get emotional, and she’d certainly never cried in front of me. Of the two sisters, she was always a bit harder around the edges. My grandmother used to say it was because having children and grandchildren breaks you down a bit and softens you. Without any children, Aunt Dorothy had retained her crusty exterior. But I suspected those differences between them had always existed.

Determined not to dissolve into a sniveling mess, I bit my lip and composed myself, then asked, “Do you think it will be too lonely here without her?”

“I am sure it will feel a bit lonely, especially at first.” She pulled a linen hanky from her sleeve to dab at her eyes. “But I think I’ll have plenty to keep me busy.”

I twisted my fingers together in my lap under the table. I suspected the things that would keep her busy had something to do with me, Mason, Ang, and the nightmares.

“Maybe I should move in here with you for a while?” I said, brightening. “I could help you cook and do housework, and you wouldn’t be alone so much. We’d have plenty of time to talk and … whatever.”

“That’s very sweet of you, my dear,” she said, and then her face took on a shrewd expression. “And yes, it would give us lots of time to get you up to speed. I’ll speak to your parents about it. Do you think there’s any chance Mason’s parents would let him stay here as well?”

“You want Mason to move in?” I asked, frowning a little.

“Well, it would make things much easier for you. And we’ve more than enough space here,” she said. How would living with Mason make things easier for me? I hoped for more of an explanation, but she just sipped her tea.

“Um, his parents could probably be persuaded. They don’t exactly keep tabs on him. He finished sophomore year while he was in Africa, so he’s basically free until next fall. Maybe he could tell them that you’d like to have somebody available to help you while I’m at school and work?”

She harrumphed a little. “Makes me sound like an invalid who needs a babysitter. But it’s not a bad idea, I suppose.”

“We only have a few weeks of school left,” I said. “Then Mason could go back home.”

“Maybe,” she said. “But I think by then you’ll want him to stay.”

I began to feel a little irritated. Aunt Dorothy seemed a little too eager to force us together. I hoped it wasn’t some attempt on her part to play matchmaker.

The doorbell rang, and I jumped up to answer it. Mason hesitated on the threshold when I opened the door. A lot had happened between us in the last twenty-four hours, but I was determined to suppress any awkwardness. I smiled broadly and swung the door open.

“Hey, come on in,” I grabbed his arm and pulled him through the doorway. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

I led him into the kitchen, and Aunt Dorothy rose from the table to greet him. She’d known Mason as long as I had; he was no stranger to this house. She smiled and laughed a little as she embraced him.

“You’ve no idea how happy I am to see you, my boy,” she said, and patted his cheek.

“It’s really good to see you, too, Aunt Dorothy,” he responded with genuine fondness. “Welcome home.”

A minute pang of jealousy prickled through me. I knew it was stupid, but she seemed almost happier to see him than she’d been to see me. And she had been so big on the idea of getting him to move into the house. I felt a sudden longing for my grandmother.

“You want anything?” I asked Mason. “I guess I can’t offer much other than water or tea.” I shrugged apologetically.

“Water would be great.” He sat across from Aunt Dorothy in the chair next to mine.

I felt all aflutter with anticipation. Now that he was here, she could start explaining all of the craziness of the past few weeks, and how she’d lost her mind in the first place. I set a glass of water in front of Mason and sat down.

“Corinne, dear, why don’t you start by telling me what you know about the
pyxis
?” Aunt Dorothy asked. I tried to hide my disappointment. She wasn’t going to tell me anything until I answered her questions.

I took a deep breath and started at the beginning. I explained how I had found the box, what happened with the bake sale, the experiments Ang and I did, and my dreams.

“If the white fluid made you come back to your senses, does that mean somebody else gave you something that made you … lose your mind?” I asked.

“In a manner of speaking, yes, I believe that’s what happened,” she answered. “But before we get into that, why don’t you tell me more about the dreams?”

Trying to remember every detail, I described the nightmares I’d had about the black fog.

“What do our dreams mean?” I asked, my voice a little hoarse from talking nonstop.

“I believe they are a warning,” Aunt Dorothy said.

“But we smelled the fog that one time at the cove,” I said. “It seems like they’re more than just symbolic or whatever.”

“You may be right in part, my dear.” She gazed into the bottom of her tea mug as if it held more than just a spent tea bag. “But the fog itself is not what you should fear, unfortunately.”

“It’s not?” Dread crept through me like fingers of mist over the lake. “Then what
should
we fear?”

She gave me a wry look. “That’s the trick. We probably won’t have much advance warning as to what we’ll be dealing with.”

“That doesn’t make me feel better.”

“Well, nothing to be done about that now, I’m afraid.” She raised her gaze and peered at me in a way that said she didn’t want to continue this line of discussion, and then she turned to Mason. “What about your dreams?”

He recounted his versions of the nightmares.

“I could tell when she was upset,” he said, his voice so low that, for a second, I thought I’d misheard. “I seem to know what she’s feeling. Not every minute of the day. But it’s especially strong when she feels scared or threatened.”

Wide-eyed, I twisted in my chair to face him. He kept his gaze on Aunt Dorothy, but he knew I was staring at him. A faint blush spread over his cheeks, and I wondered just how many of my emotions he could feel.

“You’re … he’s, like, inside my head?” I turned to Aunt Dorothy and tried to keep my voice calm.

“That’s one way to describe it, I suppose,” she said. She was entirely too nonchalant about the whole thing, and once again, I felt the prickle of irritation.

“Why? That’s just…” I sputtered a little, searching for the correct phrase to express my outrage. “That’s an invasion of my privacy! Not to mention completely
bizarre
.”

“You should be glad that he has such a connection with you,” she admonished, and her blue-gray eyes flashed like ice on the lake in the dead of winter. Her voice sharpened to a razor edge. “In all likelihood, that connection will save your life.”

I wanted to scream. How could I possibly know that Mason invading my brain should make me glad? My heart raced with pent-up frustration. Determined not to give in to the outburst swelling in my chest, I clenched my jaw and stared down at the table.

It occurred to me that Mason seemed to be accepting all of this a little easier than I was. Maybe it was because of this so-called connection with my emotional state. I wondered if there was anything else he’d failed to mention.

“Did you show her the letter?” Mason asked, touching his hand to my forearm. I flicked him a grateful glance for breaking the tension. I pulled my grandmother’s letter out of the side pocket of my bag. Mason continued, “We talked to your neighbor, Mr. Sykes. He couldn’t tell us much, though.”

Aunt Dorothy reached for her reading glasses, slid them on, and peered down at the letter. “Harold, of course,” she said absently. “I’ll be sure to speak with him soon.”

As she read, she frowned and harrumphed, probably at the part where Grandma called her a scatterbrain. I bit the inside of my cheek to smother a smile.

She finished reading and folded her hands on top of the letter. She scrutinized us over the top of her reading glasses. “Have you determined who the other guardian is?”

Mason and I glanced at each other.

“Um … we don’t really know what that means. So, no, I guess,” I said.

“Of course you don’t, I apologize,” she said, and her hand fluttered to her forehead. She looked tired. I wondered if we should let her rest, but she seemed determined to continue. She took off her glasses, folded her hands again, and was silent a moment. I leaned forward a little, sensing that she was about to reveal something important. Finally.

“There is a place here in Tapestry, a special spot that holds a certain …
power
, if you will. We call it the convergence. It’s the source of the materials for the
pyxis
solutions, among other things. There are certain people in this world who would like nothing more than to have control of the convergence. For three generations, it has been the duty of certain individuals to make sure that doesn’t happen.

“When I was young, I became one of those individuals. Doris was another. And Harold, Mr. Sykes, was another. So was our friend Evelyn, who passed away a year ago. There are always four: one Pyxis, one Shield, and two Guardians. Doris was the Pyxis, and Harold was the Shield. Evelyn and I were the two Guardians. Together, we formed the pyramidal union. The four individuals are appropriated certain skills to help them in their duties, which we will discuss later.”

I thought of the list I found in the lid of the
pyxis
and opened my mouth to tell Aunt Dorothy about it, but then pressed my lips together. I wanted to let her keep talking.

“Normally, there is a new pyramidal union formed each generation, but that didn’t happen after my generation. The Pyxis is passed down the maternal line, and because neither I nor Doris had any daughters, there was no Pyxis in that generation.” She looked at me, and there was unexpected sympathy in her eyes. “We knew that you would be the next
pyxis
, dear, but we detected no threat and didn’t want to force the role upon you when you were too young. We waited, and clearly, we waited too long. I regret that it’s happened this way, but we’ll have to make the best of it.”

She paused to sip some tea, and I took the opportunity to jump in. “What about Harriet Jensen? Was she supposed to be the Pyxis after Grandma Doris?”

Aunt Dorothy’s mouth formed a little
O
of surprise. “How do you know this?”

I told her about the list and my run-ins with Harriet.

“Well, this is a twist indeed. We did not expect Harriet to be a problem.”

“So why is she bothering me now?” I asked.

“I can’t say for certain, but we will find out. And as Harold advised, you’d best avoid her.”

Yeah, duh. Like I wanted to have anything to do with her.

Mason cleared his throat. “Aunt Dorothy, is the convergence a spot near the lake? A meadow near the water?”

She looked surprised and pleased. “Why yes, that’s right. I don’t know how you could have known that, dear, but I suppose it’s not my place to question it. I believe it’s where you young people like to gather? You call it the cove?”

That
was the magical, mystical convergence? Where kids went to get drunk and have sex? I laughed, and Aunt Dorothy regarded me with a question in her eyes.

“Sorry,” I said. “It’s just, that’s where everyone from school goes to party.”

“Yes, well, it seems to draw people to it, even those who aren’t part of the pyramidal union.” I was relieved that Aunt Dorothy seemed amused because I had the sense that I’d said something close to blasphemy. Even if it
was
the truth.

My phone shimmied sideways on the table. I picked it up and read a text from Mom.

I’m stopping by with some food from the café. You must be starved!

I relayed the message to Mason and Aunt Dorothy, and my stomach promptly growled. I hadn’t eaten since the granola bar on the way to Danton, and I noticed the daylight now faded into dusk.

Mom arrived with the food a minute later, ending any further conversation about the
pyxis
and the magical convergence and whatnot. If she was surprised to see Mason there, she didn’t show it. She stayed and ate with us, and by the time we finished, it was dark.