Poison Read online

  “I’m gagging in here.”

  “Sorry. I washed it the best I could. Get down.” He pushed the lid down on my head.

  “Howdy,” he said in an unnaturally low voice. After a while he lifted the lid.

  “Howdy?” I repeated.

  “It was the school electrician. I didn’t want him to recognize me.”

  “So you talked to him?” I sank back down. Maybe this wasn’t going to be as easy as I’d thought.

  “Okay, we’re in the building, in front of Summer’s room,” Peter whispered finally. “Open the door.”

  I peered out of the bin and looked around. If anyone saw me, I’d be dead meat, and I’d be dragging Peter to the butcher with me. But the coast was clear. This was as good as it was going to get.

  I threw five fingers at the lock. It clicked open. “Okay, go in,” I said.

  It was sad-looking inside. Summer’s bed was folded up so that the metal frame showed above the wheels. It could have been anyone’s bed, bare and ready for storage. You’d hardly know Summer had ever existed, except for the posters that had been left on the wall, one of Taylor Lautner with no shirt on, and one of Lady Gaga wearing black boots and a mask made of mirrors.

  I wondered where Summer was now. A hospital room, probably, surrounded by monitors and poles with bags of hanging liquids, and maybe a vase of flowers that she wouldn’t be able to see.

  Who had done this?

  My heart shivered. I knew I was innocent, but right then, that didn’t make any difference to Summer or the others. They were living only in the strictest sense of the word, and no one knew how long they would go on that way. I’d read that people in prolonged comas rarely woke up.

  I had to find out why this had happened. Not just for me but for them.

  “Should I clean up here?” Peter asked. “To give us a reason for coming in.”

  “No!” Sometimes Peter could be so dense. “We don’t want to disturb anything. Besides, I have to scent the place.”

  He sniffed. “Sorry, but the only scent in here is you.” He made a face. “Oysters.”

  I waved him into silence, but he was right. Once I stepped out of the jumbo plastic garbage bin, the possibility of detecting subtle mystical fragrances was pretty well obliterated.

  I decided to concentrate on the dust. There was a lot of it. My guess was that the jar of herbs I’d seen, which had no doubt been confiscated, may have been smoked in that room.

  It didn’t work, though. As hard as I tried to focus, I didn’t really know what I was looking for. A pattern? If I looked hard enough, would I see a picture, the way gypsies read tea leaves at the bottom of a cup?

  “Maybe we should move the bed,” I said.

  “I thought you didn’t want to disturb anything.”

  “We’ll put it back.”

  The bed rolled away easily, revealing a debris-filled corner. “The mother lode,” I said, sifting through it.

  Disappointingly, there didn’t seem to be very much of value there—an expired coupon for T.G.I. Friday’s, a Victoria’s Secret ad cut out of a magazine with a circle drawn around a purple racer-back bra, a receipt for $15.80 from Fred’s Bargain Mart, a sewing needle (probably the one A.J. had used to sew the tongue and stockings onto the witch doll), and a crumpled wad of paper that had once covered a drinking straw. I picked it up and smoothed it out. Written across it was a phone number.

  “Found it,” I said, dropping it along with the other items into a box I’d brought along for the purpose of collecting evidence.

  “I’ve got something too,” Peter said, showing me two broken pieces of brown plastic. “They were lodged behind the radiator. I think they’re from a hair thing. A barrette.”

  “Looks like it. Toss them in.” I held out the box.

  “I think that’s everything,” he said.

  “Then let’s get out of here.”

  I knew that most of what we’d found was junk, but there was one object that had made this whole smelly excursion worthwhile. Magical scenter or not, the phone number would probably yield more information than all the dust patterns in the room put together.

  • • •

  The number turned out to belong to some guy at Yale whom Summer had met at a bar in Boston. He acted sad when I told him about Summer’s medical condition, but I could tell by his answers to my questions that he didn’t even remember her. It was only after I’d divulged her approximate bra size—he’d asked me—that he seemed to get a picture of who I was talking about. When he asked for my name, I hung up. I figured it’d be a lost cause anyway, unless I also e-mailed him a picture of my chest.

  So that was a dead end. I went through the other things I’d found. The Victoria’s Secret ad wasn’t worth much. I figured that maybe Summer had been planning to impress the boob-crazed Yalie with a purple push-up. There was nothing strange about the needle, either. I even jabbed it into my own thumb to see if it was tipped with poison or something, but it wasn’t. Then I checked out all the T.G.I. Fridays within a ten-mile radius of Whitfield, but no one I spoke with knew Summer or the others. I considered passing on all my finds to the police, but then I’d have to admit that I’d gone into Summer’s room.

  That left the broken barrette and the receipt from Fred’s Bargain Mart.

  CHAPTER

  •

  NINE

  Saturday morning I walked into town. Now, Whitfield is a hot spot on the Haunted New England trail, although the tourists we get are generally wackier than the ones who go to Disney World. They like witches, or think they do. Some of them want to be witches. And some of them really are witches and don’t even know it, but there’s nothing we townies can do about that. Anyway, because of the tourists, most of the stores along Main Street have silly names like Haircraft (beauty shop); the Cauldron (diner); the Green Man (florist); Bell, Book, & Candle (New Age literature and assorted woo-woo gift items); Sybil (women’s clothes, mostly garments of the one-size-fits-all variety, and long velvet robes with big hoods); and Fred’s Bargain Mart.

  It was pretty easy to figure out the one thing that didn’t belong. Fred’s, with its torn awning and window crammed with out-of-print books and dingy knit pot holders and dusty statues of elves and bluebirds, was one of the most unattractive storefronts imaginable. But the place had been around forever—so had the inventory, I think—so no one even noticed it anymore.

  That’s why I was so surprised when I stood across the street and saw . . . not Fred’s but a charming little boutique with geraniums flanking the shiny red and brass doorway. Its sparkling window was divided into sections like an advent calendar, so that every individual mini-doorway displayed something different—a pair of earrings made of seed pearls in the shape of stars, a pink retro princess phone, a silver snake bracelet with eyes the same shade of green as my own, a filigree box containing painted clay figurines of animals. I can’t really explain why, but everything was so inviting. I didn’t even like to shop, but I couldn’t wait to go inside.

  I looked up. Past the new awning—black with red trim—was its new sign:

  The Emporium of Remarkable Goods

  And beneath it, a banner reading:

  Grand Opening

  Free Gift with Purchase!

  As I reached for the doorknob, I remembered—vaguely—that I was really coming to find out what connection Fred’s Bargain Mart had with Summer Hayworth and her friends, but somehow that part of it just didn’t seem so important anymore.

  Just then a high wind gusted up, smelling like spring and the sea and green places far away. I closed my eyes and shivered. Music danced somewhere in the back of my mind, just out of reach—songs of yearning and loss and the slow passage of time.

  I shook my head. For a moment I’d forgotten where I was. I’d forgotten everything.

  A hat blew toward me, and I grabbed it. It was more like one of those old-timey helmets worn by biplane pilots or football players from a hundred years ago than a real hat. Made of coarse cloth,
it looked like it was designed to fit closely over the head and then hang loosely on the sides like dog ears, sort of Elmer Fudd meets Birkenstock.

  “Oh, thank you,” huffed a red-haired kid about my age as he jogged up to me. “I was afraid I’d lose it for certain.” At least I think that’s what he said. His English was so strange that I could barely understand him.

  I took a step backward. His clothes were even weirder than his hat. He was wearing a sort of monk’s habit, a shapeless burlap robe that came down to his ankles. On his feet were what looked like leather bags.

  His face cracked into a nervous smile. “Would you tell me where the high priestess of the village is, then?”

  “The high priestess?” I repeated archly as I realized what was going on. Screw-loose tourist. Roswell, New Mexico, must be overrun by people claiming to have been abducted by aliens. Graceland had to be a mecca for Elvis impersonators. And Whitfield, Massachusetts, drew visitors like this. “The chamber of commerce is that way,” I said, pointing down the street.

  “But you . . . ” Looking puzzled, he raised his head and sniffed the air. “You’re one of us, aren’t you?”

  I resisted the urge to open my coat and check my armpits. “I don’t know what you’re talking ab— Oh.” He took my hands in his, and even through my mittens I could feel a warmth and power and a strong sense of kinship with this person. I was also getting a picture of a strange and beautiful place with starry skies and clear water. When he withdrew his hands, I felt a sense of loss.

  “Please,” he whispered, his face as angelic and innocent as a child’s. “The high priestess. I must see her. My mission is urgent.”

  Actually, Whitfield did have a high priestess: Hattie Scott, my employer at the restaurant and Peter’s guardian. I normally wouldn’t have thought of giving her name or revealing her status to a stranger, but I knew from his touch that whoever he was, he was of my kind and could be trusted. I gave him directions to Hattie’s Kitchen.

  “My thanks,” he said, bowing formally. “Fare thee well, mistress.”

  I watched as he walked down the street, his curly red hair shining in the winter sunlight. What have I done? I thought, instantly sorry about blabbing so much. But he had been so warm, so . . . trustworthy. It occurred to me to maybe follow him to Hattie’s to make sure he wasn’t an ax murderer or something, but then a bell jangled behind me and the door to Fred’s—that is, the Emporium of Remarkable Goods—opened.

  In the doorway stood a girl with long black hair and the reddest lipstick I’d ever seen. She was tall and slender and wore black four-inch-high spike-heeled boots, black leather pants, and the kind of nubbly, slouchy sweater that would have looked like a sweatshirt on me but seemed ridiculously glamorous on her.

  Total intimidation. I couldn’t get away fast enough.

  “Hold on,” she said, gesturing with her head toward the interior of the store. “You know you want to come in.”

  “No, really. I thought this was . . . someplace else.” She stared at me, looking amused. “The library,” I finished, fully aware of how lame I sounded.

  “You thought this was the library?”

  I tried a laugh. It sounded so phony, I wanted to gag myself. “I guess I wasn’t paying attention,” I babbled, backing away. “All righty, then—”

  “Oh, come on,” she said. “Nobody’s been in all day. I’m bored stiff. How about a soda?”

  CHAPTER

  •

  TEN

  “Root beer okay?” the girl called over her shoulder. “There’s Mountain Dew, too.”

  “Root beer’s fine,” I shouted. While she was gone somewhere in the back of the store, I took a look around. I wasn’t really much of a shopper, but the array of gorgeous things in the store was . . . well, breathtaking. I turned in a slow circle, unable even to walk as I took in the one-of-a-kind objects that surrounded me. There were fancy soaps, exotic-looking clothes, pocketbooks and shoes, lace collars and fishnet stockings. Cute jewelry that I longed to wear, even though I never wore jewelry. Unusual perfumes with names like Baby, New-Mown Hay, Snow, and Gold.

  My overwhelming desire to buy something was quelled as soon as I saw the prices. Everything was expensive. It was about as far removed from Fred’s Bargain Mart as you could get.

  “Hey! Catch!” she bellowed as she threw a can at me overhand. To my amazement I caught it before it crashed into one of the pricey display cases.

  “Good save.” She plopped down on a suede sofa and patted the seat cushion beside her. “How’s about taking a load off?” she asked, propping her booted feet on a coffee table.

  Obediently I came around and sat down. “You’ve got some beautiful things here,” I said.

  She shrugged. “It’s my aunt’s store,” she said. “She’s in Beirut or someplace, fighting over a shipment of silver.”

  “And she left you in charge?”

  “Why not? It’s not as if people are beating down the doors to get in.”

  I took a drink of my root beer. “My name’s Katy,” I said.

  She extended a perfectly manicured hand to me. “Morgan.” I’d never known anyone my age to shake hands before, at least not girls.

  “I guess you’re not from here,” I said.

  “You got that right. Hey, what’s with this place, anyway? Is everybody crazy for witches here or what?”

  “Oh, you noticed?” Through the front window I could see the bar called Magick Brewski. “It’s even worse than this during the summer,” I said. “And at Halloween . . . ” I rolled my eyes.

  “I get it,” Morgan said, nodding. “So, are you a witch?”

  I choked on my drink. Fizz poured out my nose. Very cool.

  “Okay, take it easy. It was just a question. You don’t have to answer.”

  So I didn’t. I mean, if I’d been a little more prepared, I might have come up with a believable lie, but since I was pretty sure she was only trying to make conversation, silence seemed to be the best course of action, especially since I was already in trouble for magical showboating.

  “Actually, I came to ask about something,” I said finally. “I don’t suppose you worked here while the place was still Fred’s Bargain Mart.”

  “No, I just got here.” She shrugged. I nodded. “But my aunt took over the inventory, and I’ve cataloged it all, if that helps.”

  Well, that was something, anyway. “Did you—er, Fred—sell Ouija boards?”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Sure did. Still have three of them in the back.” She got up and gestured for me to follow her. “They’re not in the best condition, but my aunt thought someone might want them for their retro value.” After a walk through more enticing merchandise, she handed one of the boxes to me. “Do you want to examine it first?”

  I didn’t know what I’d be examining it for, since I’d never actually seen a Ouija board. “No, that’s all right,” I said. I took out the receipt from Fred’s Bargain Mart that I’d found in Summer’s dorm room. “I just need to know if this was for a Ouija board. It would have been last week. On the twenty-third. Whatever she bought cost fifteen dollars and eighty cents. She used a credit card.”

  “No problem,” Morgan said. She compared a number on the box with one on the receipt. “That was it.”

  So Summer had bought the board here. But I already knew that.

  “Mystery solved?”

  I took a deep breath. “Well, it explains what the receipt was for,” I said. I’d been hoping that Summer had acquired the Ouija in some weird way. That it had been a magic board. But it looked like it was exactly what Miss P had said it was, a perfectly ordinary toy. “I guess it helps. Thanks.”

  She cocked her head. “So what are you checking out? Or are you on some secret quest?”

  “Nothing like that. It’s just . . . Well, these girls at school . . . ” I didn’t know how much to tell her. Or how. Or if. Probably not, I thought, rubbing a dark spot on the rug with my toe. “They sort of . . . Aak!”

&
nbsp; Beside me, in Morgan’s place, sat a spotted jaguar.

  I leaped down the length of the store like a demented sprinter and took refuge behind the sofa.

  “Jeez. Relax, will you?” she said as she turned back into a girl again. “You were just kind of losing me there, you know? Got to work on the social skills, Katy.”

  “You turned into a jungle cat because you were bored with my conversation?” I asked huffily.

  “Nah. Just trying to spice things up a little, that’s all.”

  I shook my head to clear it. “So you’re a witch too,” I said finally.

  “Shape-shifter. What’s your thing?”

  “Er . . . ”

  “Come on, out with it.”

  “I don’t know,” I said, waffling. You didn’t just go around telling people you were a witch, even if you knew they were.

  “For crying out loud, Katy, I smelled you coming down the street.”

  “Smelled?” I thought of the oddly dressed red-haired guy who’d sniffed around me. “Do I smell like—”

  “You smell like a witch,” Morgan said.

  This was the weirdest thing I’d ever heard. I’d never noticed that witches smelled any different from anyone else. I doubted that even the major league witches of Whitfield—people like Miss P or Hattie Scott or my great-grandmother, Elizabeth Ainsworth—could smell the difference between witches and cowen.

  “How about closing your mouth?” Morgan teased. “You’re drawing bats.”

  I guessed I’d been gawking. “Just how do we smell?” I asked quietly.

  She laughed, a big, raucous guffaw that was so at odds with her sophisticated appearance. That laugh dared me to stay mad at her. In another second I found myself laughing along with her.

  “We smell fabulous,” she said, throwing her leg over the top of the sofa. “As cool and clean as running water, with a touch of mystery. Deep and earthy. Passionate. Wise. Exciting.”

  “All that? Hmm, maybe I’ll quit showering.” She’d said “we,” I’d noticed. “Seriously, though, how did you know?”