Poison (8 page)

Don’t get me wrong. I was glad that something might finally be going Peter’s way. It was just that, as selfish as it was, I missed him then, that night, when I had no friends and no work and nobody in the house except the ten thousandth generation of Whitfield mice to keep me company.

My life was going through a black hole or something, what with my soiled reputation at school. I didn’t feel welcome there. My family was doing wedding things. My dad—well, that was the same as ever, his idea of a warm relationship being an e-mail forward. My job at Hattie’s Kitchen had always allowed me to take my mind off my problems, but it looked as if I might have been replaced there, too.

And now Peter, who would be wearing an Armani tux to Winter Frolic while I graced his arm in a gown from the consignment store, was too busy to talk to me.

Did that suck or what?

•

I made a sandwich and took it to my room upstairs. My French textbook was open to a review of irregular verbs, in preparation for a test on Monday.

Great. I’d be spending Saturday night studying for a verb test two full days in the future. Just call me Miss Party. In a dramatic (and, okay, childish) gesture, I threw the French book against the wall. On its way it knocked over the box where I’d stashed the debris from Summer’s room.

With a sigh I crawled under my desk, where the various “clues”—all having proven to be worthless—were strewn, and tossed them one by one into the wastebasket—the bra ad, the sewing needle, the T.G.I. Friday’s coupon, the sex-crazed Yalie’s phone number. From my jeans pocket I took the receipt for the Ouija board and tossed that in too. While I was retrieving my French book, I spotted the two broken pieces of plastic that Peter had found. They had fallen behind the desk, and I had to reach for them with a back scratcher. When I finally
got hold of them, I hit my head while extricating myself, and cursed through clenched teeth while the jagged pieces of plastic dug into my palm.

“Calm down,” I said out loud, forcing myself to lean against the bed. I knew that I was having a klutzdown—a meltdown of klutziness, not unfamiliar to me—and that if I stood up at that moment, I was sure to stub my toe, spill coffee on my books, and probably poke myself in the eye. “Breathe,” I commanded myself, closing my eyes. “In, out, in, out . . . ”

In my mind’s eye I saw a beautiful meadow filled with wildflowers. The sky was a soft, cloudless blue, and the air was suffused with the scent of violets. “Yes, yes,” I whispered. “Good thoughts . . . ”

Into the picture I’d created walked a man of late middle age.

Huh?

•  •  •

A dark-haired young girl, eight or nine years old, held his hand and skipped alongside him. At a spot in the meadow where a profusion of daisies grew, the girl stopped, picked an armful of flowers, and offered them to . . . her father. Yes, of course he was her father, despite his advancing years.

The longer I held on to the image, the more certain I became, although I still had no idea why I was having this vision in the first place.

The little girl loved him more than life itself. His visits, though infrequent, were filled with surprises and affection. And magic. Oh, the magic! The girl tossed the daisies over her head and—whoosh!—they changed in midair into butterflies. Shrieks of laughter. The man applauded appreciatively.

What was this? I wondered. A dream? Had I fallen asleep? Or was my subconscious telling me something about my relationship with my psychologically distant father? If so, why was this man so much older than my dad, who was thirty-eight, looked like Hugh Jackman, and was cowen to the core? Why was the little girl doing magic? Before I’d come to Whitfield, I’d never mentioned a word about my abilities to anyone.

Still, only a small part of my mind asked those questions. The rest of me just wanted to watch.

•  •  •

The girl held up her arms, and the man picked her up and whirled her around in a cloud of butterflies. Then he set her down, admonishing her with an upheld index finger to stay.

The girl’s face fell. She ran toward him, her arms outstretched once again. But this time he did not pick her up but pushed her away gently, shaking his head. She cried as he moved farther and farther away, growing dimmer with each step as if he were being enveloped in mist.

“Da,” she called, but she knew she could not bring him back. He would return when he wished, when he could spare the time from his other life, his other child, whom he loved more than he loved her.

“Please don’t go,” she whispered, sinking to her knees. No one heard her. Strands of her long hair fell across her eyes and stuck to her teary face. “Don’t leave me—”

And then she heard them. Looking skyward, she saw vultures flying toward her, their huge wings making shadows on the earth beneath them, surely coming for her.

“No. No,” the little girl rasped, staggering to her feet and stumbling forward, her head craned to see the creatures behind her. “No!”

She ran as fast as she could, but she could not outrun the gigantic birds. They swooped down on her, their ragged wings enveloping her as they grasped her thin bones with their claws and screeched into her ears.

“Da!” she called helplessly as she tried to cover her head. “Come back for me, please, Da.”

•  •  •

I jumped up so fast that for a moment I didn’t remember where I was. My hands were trembling. I opened them slowly. In my right palm, which was marked by their sharp edges, were the two pieces of plastic I’d found under my desk.

It had been a long time since I’d “read” objects without thinking about them. I guessed it was because I’d forgotten that I was holding those plastic bits. But what exactly
had
I been reading? Almost reluctantly I let the pieces fall back into the box where they had been since Peter had found them. Even in the box they seemed to be vibrating with energy. And my ring . . .

The ring from Morgan’s store was glowing again, a bright opalescent blue.

Still breathing hard, I put the lid on the box and placed it on top of my dresser. Psychometry was strange that way. Usually the vibes I got from objects were pretty drab, but occasionally, if the thing I touched had a lot of emotion attached to it, it could be a pretty intense experience.

One thing I knew, though, was that the emotions I’d gotten through those bits of plastic hadn’t belonged to Summer Hayworth. Those thoughts had come from a witch, one who could turn flowers into butterflies at an age when most children were learning to roller skate.

So how had they gotten into Summer’s room?

•  •  •

After finishing my sandwich, I tried to call Peter again, but this time he didn’t answer at all. He was probably getting his pants fitted, I thought.

Or else he just didn’t want to talk to me.

Suddenly all thought of my psychometric experience vanished, replaced by paranoid thoughts about Peter Shaw. Did he even love me anymore? My “Insecure Katy” voice kept piping up.
Well, why should he?
it said. I was okay for Tuesday evening, maybe, but why should Peter stay with me now that he was a part of the great Shaw family again? He wasn’t the poor little orphan boy anymore. The richest man in town was re-inheriting him.

I wondered how long it would be before the Muffies at school started to treat him like one of their own. They’d always liked Peter—you couldn’t look like he did without having girls fall all over you—but now he was in their league. Becca Fowler had told me that she’d overheard a group of Muffies comparing notes about Peter. Two of them had asked him to Winter Frolic, but he’d turned them both down because, as one of them had said, he was stuck with “the kitchen girl.”

That was me, I guess. There was no way they could understand that cooking was something I liked to do. Not to mention how the extra money I was making would come in handy when I went to Harvard after I graduated the following year. Me. With Peter. Alone, since there was no chance that any of those Barbie doll cretins at Ainsworth School would be going there.

Still, it was a long time between high school and college, and with his recent ascent in social status, my guess was that Peter was going to start looking more like Muffy candy
and less like someone who’d want to spend his life with the kitchen girl.

Insecure Katy wasn’t someone I liked to listen to.

To get rid of her I called my great-grandmother’s cell. “Where
are
you, Gram?” I demanded. “It’s almost seven o’clock.”

“Oh, dear,” she said, sounding dismayed. “Are you at home? We thought you’d be working tonight.”

“I was supposed to, but—”

“Agnes and Jonathan and I are on our way to Heath’s for dinner, and then afterward we’ll be stopping at the hospital. Jonathan’s agreed to put up some bookshelves in the children’s play area. Do join us, Katy.”

“Er . . . thanks, but I’ve already eaten,” I said. It was a pretty safe bet that Heath’s had been Gram’s idea, since it specialized in soft white food for old ladies. Jonathan must have been loving that. Not to mention working at night for free. But hey, maybe that was what happened when you got married. You ended up living a life you didn’t even want. Maybe that was what Peter was afraid of. Maybe the prospect of throwing his future away on the kitchen girl—

“Oh, stop it!” I said out loud.

“What was that, dear?” Gram asked.

“Oh, nothing. A bug. Er, crawling up my leg.”

“Good grief.”

I figured I’d better get off the phone before I lied myself into the emergency room. I made my apologies to Gram and Agnes—not that any were necessary, since they hadn’t planned on inviting me in the first place—and left the house. I just couldn’t stand my own company any longer.

•

All of downtown Whitfield looked like a scene cut out of paper and set against a star-filled sky. Cars were starting to fill up the parking lot in front of Hattie’s Kitchen, their owners no doubt expecting real food. Whatever she and Bryce de Crewe were concocting, it was probably going to come as an unwelcome surprise to the diners.

That was a bad move, in my opinion. Hattie’s Kitchen had a reputation, deserved or not, for giving everyone what they needed. That meant a lot of different meals and custom everything. How could you run a restaurant where you served everybody the same thing? And soup, at that?

The thing that bothered me most, though, was that she hadn’t trusted me enough to let me help her. She preferred relying on a total stranger.

Who was this Bryce guy, anyway? Some dude who blew in from nowhere, and clearly didn’t have all his marbles, either, I thought irritably as I passed the last of the restaurant’s twinkling
lights. Against the dark sky my ring glowed fairy blue on my finger.

I moved on purposefully toward the lineup of Main Street stores, where the Emporium of Remarkable Goods stood out like a beacon. Even from across the street I could see the
CLOSED
sign on the door. Well, duh. It was nearly eight o’clock at night, and the summer tourists were long gone. What had I expected?

I was about to turn around and go back home when I saw some movement in the store. Maybe she was still there. As I crossed the street, a thought floated into my mind:
What am I doing here?
When Morgan had told me to come back, I doubted that she’d meant come back
that night.
I mean, girls who looked like her always found something to do on Saturday night, even if they were new in town.

What had I been thinking?
Oh, God,
I thought,
I’ve got to go home before I start bibbling my lips or walking down the street doing the chicken dance
.

“Katy?”

Morgan was at the door, smiling. “Couldn’t stay away, huh?”

“Oh, no,” I said airily. “I was just . . . ” I made a vague gesture meant to indicate that I hadn’t intended to be there at all but was only strolling past the closed storefronts on a whim.

“Looking for the library again?”