Poison Read online

  “The Seer,” she said. “She’s calling the Darkness.”

  That was when the snake began to hiss, and then to grow, squirming upright like a giant cobra.

  “The . . . the Seer?” I asked numbly.

  “Old friendships die hard,” she said with a mocking smile.

  The snake rose up over us, looming so large that it blotted out the sun.

  “But you’re not still her . . . friend,” I said uncertainly.

  “I made a deal with her, remember?”

  I looked down at the ring whose poison was destroying this whole magical universe. “You aren’t that person anymore,” I said softly.

  Morgan shrugged. “Does it matter?” She looked over at me. “I think she’s come to tell me that a deal’s a deal.”

  • • •

  The snake crept closer, and I saw that it had transformed into a twister, a hundred feet high, picking up everything in its path as it grew darker and denser. And it was coming at us with the speed of a locomotive.

  “Oh, Gram,” I squeaked. I could feel myself shaking.

  “Stop thinking about yourself,” Morgan said. I thought it was an odd thing to say, especially since I was only thinking of myself in terms of my imminent death, but it brought me to my senses. She was right—it wasn’t about me, and it hadn’t been ever since I’d had to leave Whitfield. As far as the future went, I had none. I’d known that when I’d gotten to Avalon. Either I would leave every last bit of myself out on this field or everything I’d been through would have been for nothing.

  “Okay,” I said. “I’m ready.” Morgan turned to look straight at me. “What?” I asked, hoping she wasn’t going to show me another monster on the horizon.

  “I just want to tell you . . . ” She hesitated.

  Can this wait? I thought. I looked at the snake slithering at incredible speed across the field. “What is it, Morgan?” I nearly shouted.

  “. . . that I’m sorry,” she finished. “About everything. I wish I hadn’t brought you into this.”

  I swallowed. Could she have waited? And I answered myself. No, she couldn’t. Because she wasn’t expecting us to live through what was ahead either. Whatever had to be said, whatever had to be mended, it had to be done now.

  “Forget that,” I said, reaching over to squeeze her hand.

  • • •

  Suddenly it was as if the sky exploded around me. Debris flew everywhere as the wind increased to hurricane proportions and the perennial sunny spring of Avalon was engulfed in pitch blackness. In the distance I heard Bryce’s voice call my name, but it was too late to talk. Too late for everything, really. The Travelers were all safely away. There was nothing to do anymore but take whatever the Darkness had to give.

  Just do what you can, I told myself as Morgan and I stepped hand in hand into the heart of the Darkness. I screamed, not out of fear but to let the Darkness know that the two of us were there, in its belly, and that these two women would not go meekly to their deaths.

  I felt my hair standing on end as I reached out my free hand. Through even this primeval blackness my ring glowed, a dot of light in the dark depths of space that had descended on us.

  Morgan’s grip on me loosened. I looked over to see her vanishing into the blackness. “No!” I shouted as I realized that she was leaving. “No!”

  But in an instant she was gone.

  Well, that’s just fricking great, I thought, furious. But then, what had I expected? Morgan and the Seer had made a pact with the Darkness a long time ago. She’d told me herself: A deal’s a deal. Had I really thought she’d help me do anything except die?

  A strangled sound shrilled out of my throat. Forgiveness, my tuchus. I wished I had her throat between my hands.

  “Oh, hell,” I said out loud, allowing myself to breathe again. What did it even matter, really? Dying alone or holding hands, it was still dying. The Travelers were safe. I’d done my job. It was time for the poison girl to move on.

  I thought of Peter. He would miss me. I’d been faced with death before, but Peter had been with me then. It was better this way, because I knew he’d at least have a chance to be safe.

  But he would miss me. My thoughts raced back to when I’d last seen him in New York. When we’d held our hands to opposite sides of Gram’s car window, all I’d been able to feel was the glass, but through it I could imagine his skin, his soft lips, his beating heart. I would never know these things again, even if I lived. And so it didn’t matter to me that I wouldn’t live. Only that I would never touch him again.

  As the Native Americans used to say, it was a good day to die.

  But Peter would miss me.

  • • •

  Then the speed of the black whirlwind around me picked up with a wild sound like bagpipes from hell. In the center of it the face of the Seer seemed to emerge, ancient and mad, its rotting teeth sharpened to daggerlike points, its mouth open wide.

  Just do what you can, I reminded myself, willing my hands to stop shaking. Dying wouldn’t be so hard if it weren’t for the fear that came with it. “I love you, Peter,” I whispered. I knew he couldn’t hear me, but I hoped that maybe he would feel it anyway.

  That centered me a little, although the Darkness was pressing upon me like a huge weight. The wind was so forceful that I could barely breathe. In another moment, I knew, the whirlwind would pick me up and tear me to pieces.

  Just then I saw my ring glowing brighter, brighter than I’d ever seen it, until, in what had to be a trick of the light, it seemed to lift off my finger.

  It formed a still ball of light in the whirling Darkness. I gasped with what I thought must be my last breath as the floating ball of light elongated into the form of a woman, shimmering like a goddess in the dark vacuum where I stood.

  I watched, astonished, as Morgan’s face appeared in the glow, as if she had become the ring itself. Before my eyes she had transformed into something eternal and beautiful, and powerful beyond imagining.

  “Thank you for being my friend,” the ethereal being breathed into my ear before she leaped into the Darkness like a diver slicing through water.

  She whirled inside the cone of the Darkness, a blur of gold. It was her life force I was watching, everything about Morgan that the Darkness had not taken from her. She thought she had traded her soul for power, but a soul can never really be lost. Now she had found it again, and she had used it to save me.

  The light that was Morgan exploded into a million fragments. I heard the Seer scream as the Darkness slowly vanished into fog, consumed by the power of Morgan le Fay’s beautiful, blessed soul.

  CHAPTER

  •

  FIFTY-THREE

  The sky cleared. The ring, now a flat, spent stone, still sat on my finger. Some things really were forever, and evil was one of them. Somewhere, I knew, the Darkness still existed. It always would. Goodness—or love, or whatever was the Darkness’s opposite—was different. It came from tiny dots of light inside each of us. Morgan’s light had saved my life. Mine had saved the Travelers’ lives. And theirs would pass through the Darkness too, in their own ways, in their own time. In the end we would always have a fighting chance.

  “Good job, Morgan,” I said, allowing myself to sit on the soft grass of Avalon.

  The birds began to sing once again. In the forest I could see the eyes of wild creatures blinking with wonder that the light had returned. It would be a good day, after all, even though I was alone in this place, on this plane, where I would remain alone for the rest of my life.

  I shivered. The portal to Whitfield had been closed, and a good thing too. The last thing those poor people needed after being uprooted from their homes was a dose of walking poison infecting their new home.

  Could they see me from the other side? I wondered. Would I be like an animal in a zoo, a pastime for any observers who cared to see how I managed to live from day to day? Maybe taking bets on how long it would take me to go crazy and hang myself from a tree?
/>   “Are you out there?” I asked out loud, leaning toward the portal. “Because if you are, I’m going to ask you to stop.” I paused for a moment, gathering my thoughts. “But first I’ve got something to say. It’s about Morgan. Whatever you’ve heard about her, forget it. She saved you all, even though it cost her her life. No matter what else she did, that should count for something.”

  I tried to compose myself. “Gram, I want to tell you how much it’s meant to me to be part of your family,” I said. “I don’t remember my mother, and my dad—well, you know how he is. Busy. Tell him I’m okay. And don’t let him blame you for what happened. This whole thing was my fault, and it has turned out as well as it could, so I’m not complaining.

  “All of you—Aunt Agnes, Miss P, Hattie, Bryce, Becca—I’ll never forget you. I love you all.”

  I was feeling myself choke up at this point, but I had to finish what I needed to say. “And, Peter . . . ” I cleared my throat and tried to keep my voice from trembling. “I’m so proud of you. You’ve always been my hero.”

  I could hear my voice starting to wobble then, so I stopped talking. There was more I could have said, I supposed, about why I didn’t want any further communication with Whitfield or my family, but I didn’t think they would have understood. They couldn’t. They were good.

  People like Gram and Hattie and Miss P thought of the Darkness as something outside of themselves, something dirty to be brushed away before it touched them. But it had already touched me, and more. The Darkness had crawled inside me like a worm, and I knew that for the rest of my life that worm, that dark thing, would always be a part of me, as much as it had been a part of Morgan.

  She had died honorably, and I believed that when she gave up her life, that fragment of the Darkness that had made a monster of her flew away like dust in the wind. She’d gone out clean.

  But I was still alive, and as long as I was, I would never be clean again. My innocence was gone. That small, pure space in my soul—that place that still existed intact for the others—was, for me, now filled by the Darkness, and always would be.

  No, they wouldn’t understand. And I wouldn’t want them to.

  “Katy.” A whisper. I looked up with a gasp. Peter was standing beside me. A soft breeze ruffled through his hair. He held out his arms to me.

  “No,” I said, lunging backward. “Please go. You shouldn’t even have come through the portal.”

  He shook his head slowly. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said.

  My eyes flooded. I wanted so much to run to him, to touch him, but I knew I couldn’t. Not without killing him. “Don’t do this to me,” I begged.

  “You said I was your hero, but that was wrong. You’ve always been the heroic one.” His face was filled with sorrow. “I hated watching you fight alone.”

  “I wasn’t alone,” I said. “You were making everything possible.”

  He put his hands into his pockets and grinned a small, lopsided smile. “Do you think this was what Eric’s prophecy meant? That we’d destroy this place together?”

  I blinked. “I thought it was Whitfield we were going to destroy.”

  He shrugged. “I don’t remember.”

  “I don’t believe in prophecies, anyway,” I said. “People can change everything.” I looked down at my ring. “Well, almost everything.” I tried to smile. “Go back, Peter,” I said as gently as I could. “We both know it’s the only smart thing to do.”

  “Who says I’m smart?”

  “Peter—”

  “I’m not leaving you, Katy. Not now, not ever.”

  “Yes, you are!” I shouted. “You have to. Staying with me will kill you! Don’t you understand?”

  “No,” he said softly. “I don’t understand. Whatever happens, I don’t care. I don’t want to live without you.”

  “Stop it!” I screamed. “I’m not even worth it! I’m not worth . . . anything . . . ” I sobbed into my hands.

  “You’re wrong there,” he said, wrapping his arms around me. Panicking for his safety, I tried desperately to push him away, but he held me fast. “You’re worth everything to me,” he whispered in my ear. “Everything I am, everything I ever will be, is because of you. And I will never, never let you go.”

  I pounded my fists against him. “Go away!” I pleaded. “Please, Peter . . . ”

  But he crushed me against his body until I had to stop struggling. Then he kissed me full on my mouth. Even then I tried to pull away, but he caught my face in his big hands and turned it back toward his.

  “I love you,” he whispered, pressing so closely against me that I could feel his heart beating in his chest, could feel his thighs move hard against me as he kissed me more deeply. “I love you,” he said. The words were as soft as the breeze that touched us, and as sweet.

  I gave in then, kissing him back, feeling the hardness of his tongue against mine. I felt as if I were melting beneath his heat. “Oh, Peter,” I said, filled with regret and confusion. “Do you even know what you’ve done by coming here? By being with me?”

  “I’ve told you that I’m going to be with you for the rest of my life.” He looked deep into my eyes. “However long that may be.”

  I hung my head. I knew I would not be able to live with another death. Not his death.

  “Hey,” he said gently, lifting my chin. “The rest of my life may be longer than you think.” He took my hand and touched the flat, cold stone of the ring. Then, with no effort at all, he pulled it off my finger.

  I choked. “How did you . . . ”

  “It’s got no more power,” Peter said, tossing it away. “Morgan used it all when she threw herself into the Darkness.”

  “But . . . ” I stared at my naked finger. “How did you know that? How did you know I was safe to be around?”

  Peter kissed my forehead. “I didn’t,” he said, moving his lips down to kiss my eyes, my cheeks, my lips. The place where the ring had been had left a white mark on my finger. He kissed that, too.

  “I can’t believe it,” I said. “It’s over.”

  “For now,” Peter said.

  “Right,” I said hollowly. “For now.”

  He tousled my hair. “Now’s enough.” I pressed my face against his chest. “Come home, Katy,” he whispered, holding me tight. “You promised.”

  “Home,” I repeated. “But I—” I couldn’t stop smiling.

  “With me.”

  I thought about it for a moment. “With you,” I said, and I knew that would make all the difference. Whatever I might be, whatever I might face, I’d be with him.

  “Come on,” he said.

  Then he led me by the hand through the portal back to Whitfield.

  Back to life.

  MOLLY COCHRAN is the New York Times bestselling author of more than twenty-five books. Her first novel, Grandmaster, written with Warren Murphy, was a New York Times bestseller and Edgar Award recipient. She and Warren Murphy also wrote the international bestseller The Forever King. Publishers Weekly called her first YA novel, Legacy, “an exciting and well-written tale of contemporary witchcraft and romance.” She lives with her family in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Visit her at mollycochran.com.

  Jacket design by Krista Vossen

  Jacket photograph by Laura Hanifin,

  copyright © 2012 by Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  A Paula Wiseman Book

  Simon & Schuster • New York

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  Also by Molly Cochran

  Legacy

  An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division

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  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or plac
es or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2012 by Molly Cochran

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  is a trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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  Book design by Krista Vossen

  The text for this book is set in Bodoni.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Cochran, Molly.

  Poison / Molly Cochran.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  “A Paula Wiseman Book.”

  Summary: Katy receives a “gift” of poison that turns her into a killer, while powerful witches stir up trouble, not only at Ainsworth School, but in a world known as Avalon, as well.

  ISBN 978-1-4424-5050-9

  ISBN 978-1-4424-5052-3 (eBook)

  [1. Good and evil—Fiction. 2. Supernatural—Fiction. 3. Witches—Fiction. 4. Poisons—Fiction. 5. Morgan le Fay (Legendary character)—Fiction. 6. Boarding schools—Fiction. 7. Schools—Fiction. 8. Massachusetts—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.C6394Poi 2012

  [Fic]—dc23

  2012006736