Poison Princess

5

DAY 3 B.F.

I lay in bed with my books spread out all around me, my buzzing cell phone in my open palm, my TV on, volume muted.

On Thursday nights, Mel and I always watched America’s Next Top Model together, texting commentary. She opened with: I’d totally do the ginger model.

But I had no energy to respond.

R U there?

I finally texted, U’d do the dress dummy.

HAHAHAHAHAHA bitch

I grinned sleepily, then turned back to my homework. I’d been reading the same sentence again and again with no comprehension. Ultimately, I gave up, collapsing onto my back. Sprawled like a casualty, I gazed around me.

After my stint in the bleak, no-frills CLC, I was still unused to the luxuries of home. My room here was spacious, with a walk-in closet you could get lost in and a Sotheby’s auction worth of antique furniture. The astronomical thread-count of these yummy sheets made me want to purr.

I’d even missed my wall mural. Before I’d gone round the bend last spring, when things had been so hopeless, I’d drawn the blackest, most ominous storm clouds, then rendered them aglow with lightning bolts. I found myself staring even now. . . .

A text chime distracted me. Spence hasn’t called. WTF Greene?

Working on it, I texted with a wide yawn. Though so much was riding on my grades, I still couldn’t motivate myself to study. Convincing myself that I’d never have a pop quiz tomorrow—I mean, what were the odds?—I decided to go to sleep.

With one lethargic leg, I shuffled books off my bed. My journal was already tucked safely under my mattress.

I texted: C-P. bout 2 pass out, tlk 2moro? My responses to Brandon’s messages had been equally lame.

But U never miss ANTM

Though I could hear the hurt in her text, I still wrote, Nite. Phone and TV off.

In the dark of the night, our old house settled with ghostly groans, shrouded in fog. The moisture swelled the boards, making the frame shift like it was trying to get comfortable.

On nights like this, a ship at sea was quieter.

Haven was the only home I’d ever known. I could feel its history, could feel the farm suffering now. Since I’d been back, the weather had been like a near-sneeze, rain clouds building and building, only to dissipate with no payoff. The drought wore on. . . .

But when I shut my eyes, I found my thoughts drifting to another source of worry. Jackson Deveaux. Courtesy of the Cajun, my week had deteriorated even more. As promised, he’d been keeping his eye on me, scowling the entire time.

Like he was being forced to investigate something he particularly hated.

In English yesterday, he’d glowered at the kid behind me, taking the swiftly vacated desk. While I’d sat stiffly, he’d leaned forward until awareness of him had permeated my senses. I’d been able to hear his breaths, to smell the medical tape on his hands and a woodsier male scent that made my skin flush. The room had been dark and close as another teasing storm front had rolled into the parish.

Then he’d started murmuring le Français Cadien to me, telling me that he knew I could understand him, and that he’d prove it. Wanting to thwart him in any way possible, I’d shown no reaction, even when he’d said in a husky tone that I smelled comme une fleur, like a blossom.

Why wouldn’t he leave me alone?

Just as he’d studied me, I’d tried to analyze him. One thing I’d noticed? When he didn’t think anyone was looking, his gaze turned restless, as if he longed to be anywhere but where he was at that moment. And he would absently run his fingers over the tape on his knuckles. Why did he wear it?

I threw my arm over my face. Why was I musing about Jackson?

Instead of my own boyfriend?

I wasn’t thinking clearly! God, I just needed one good night’s sleep. Though my bitter little pills hadn’t prevented yesterday’s hallucination—or, rather, my residual blip—they still succeeded in making me sleepy.

I glanced over at my pill bottle. Desperate times . . .

Later that night, I woke to find myself standing in my driveway in my underwear, with no memory of how I came to be there.

I blinked several times. Surely this was a dream, or even a hallucination.

Last I remembered, I’d been tanked on pills, drifting off in my bed. So, any minute now, I’d really wake up.

Any minute . . .

Nope. Still standing there, barefooted on my oyster-shell driveway, wearing nothing but boy-short panties and an old cheerleading camp T-shirt.

Shit.

I squinted through the mist to get my bearings, but I could barely see a few feet in front of me.

The fog was as thick and wet as breath on a mirror, dimming the heat lightning above. Yellow bolts the color of a cat’s eye forked out above me.

Assuring myself that there was a perfectly logical reason why this hallucination was more lifelike than the others, I started back toward the house, wincing as the razor-sharp shells sliced my tender feet. Naturally, our driveway was raised, flanked by two drainage ditches all the way to our lawn. Which meant I was stuck halfway down the mile-long drive.

A stable person might ask herself why she had no cuts from the trip out here; it wasn’t like I’d been plopped here from the sky.

Maybe because this is just a dream? I told myself that, even as I cussed and sputtered my way across the shells.

And to make the situation worse, I again felt like I was being watched. I ran my hand over my nape. Ignore it—

A horse shrieked. I jerked my head around, peering through the fog, but couldn’t determine the direction.

Another frenzied shriek—that couldn’t possibly have come from my gentle nag dozing in the barn. I quickened my pace.

My eyes went wide when I made out the sound of hooves crushing the shells; a horse was speeding toward me. From behind me? Farther down the drive? I couldn’t tell!

This isn’t real. You’re in control, focused!

Hard to focus when my feet were getting sliced! “Shit, shit.”

Hooves pounded closer . . . closer as I hopped and yelped my way down the drive like a cartoon character.

Then I heard metal clanking against metal, almost like the sound of armor?

My instincts got the better of me. Ignoring the pain, I began to seriously run.

Finally the end of the drive was in sight. To my right, Haven House loomed. To my left was the edge of our front cane field.

The house was safer.

The field was closer.

How much of a lead did I have on the rider? The heaving breaths of that horse sounded directly behind me. How close was he?

A memory of Gran’s voice drifted through my mind: “The fog lies, Evie.”

As soon as the driveway dumped into the front lawn, I veered off, sprinting toward the field. This close to harvest, the cane was mature, twice as tall as I was. I could lose anyone in those rows. I craned my head back but saw only a blur of a rider.

Running . . . running . . .

I heard a whistle, as if something was slicing through the air. A sword? Even in my panic, some memory was tickling my brain.

The cane was twenty feet away.

Ten feet.

When I heard that whistling directly behind me and felt a sudden breeze on my nape, I dove for the edge of the cane rows, arms outstretched in front of me.

Amid the stalks, I scrambled to my knees, but the rider didn’t follow. His horse reared with another shriek, front legs stabbing the air with sharpened hooves.

I gaped up at my pursuer. He wore black armor with a fearsome helmet. The weapon he’d wielded was a scythe; it now sat glinting in a saddle holster. His pale stallion had red eyes.

As he spurred that mount to stalk back and forth at the edge of the field, I fought realization.

Scythe. Black armor. A pale horse.

This was . . . Death. The classic image of the Grim Reaper.

His horse’s mane was blowing in a wind that I could not feel. The feathery leaves of the cane above me were still.

As I stared at him, the regular soundtrack of the farm—my own horse whinnying in sleep, katydids chirping—gave way to the sounds of gravel crunching underfoot, that breeze picking up, and the occasional . . . hiss?

Behind Death, Haven House began to disappear, transformed into a space of gleaming black, cluttered with crushed pillars and piles of rubble. Like ancient city ruins?

I sensed that this was his barren, soulless lair, and his plane seemed to be pressing against my own.

Would he find my half of the world—all green and misty with sultry night air—as incomprehensible as I found his?

If he left, would my house come back? Would my mother inside come back? This delusion had gone from mind-blowingly wrong to horrifying. Can’t process this!

He dismounted and strode to the edge of the field, but he wouldn’t enter the cane. Why?

His jet-black armor was clearly from olden times, yet sported no chinks. Because no one had landed a blow against him? He had two wicked-looking swords, one sheathed at each hip.

Finally, I found my voice. “Who are y-you?”

“Who am I, she asks.” My question amused him? “Life in your blood, in your very touch”—his voice was as raspy as the dry leaves, his accent foreign, though I couldn’t pinpoint it—“and yet no one told you to expect me?” There was a light shining behind the grille of his helmet, as if his eyes glowed.

“What are you talking about?” I demanded with as much bravado as I could. “What do you want?”

Another hiss came from his lair, from among those ruins behind him.

Death removed his spiked metal gloves, revealing a man’s hands, pale and perfect. “You know me. You always know, well before my blade strikes you down.”

“You’re insane,” I whispered, though he felt so familiar to me.

He dropped to one knee at the edge of the cane and reached for me. “Come to me, Empress.”

Empress Evie, Empress Evie . . .

His hand was mere inches from my arm, but I was paralyzed, transfixed by the light coming from behind his helmet—until something drew my attention.

Behind Death, I spied a hideous horned boy—more like a hunchbacked beast—skulking among the ruins. Ropy lines of spittle dangled from his bottom lip.

Death followed the direction of my gaze. “Don’t mind Ogen,” he said. “El Diablo is an old ally of mine.”

“I’ll make a feast of your bones,” Ogen hissed at me as he sharpened one of his horns against stone. The grating sound was unbearable, shaking the rubble like an earthquake, making me want to scream. “Suck the marrow dry as you watch.”

“Ignore him. Think of me alone.” Death reached closer. “I’ve waited so long to face you again. Aren’t you ready to have done with this?”

The cane bent unnaturally around me, as if to cage me in. Hadn’t Gran always called the stalks “soldiers at attention”?

Was the cane trying to protect me?

“It begins directly at the End, Empress.” Another seeking reach.

I scrambled back from him, wincing as pain ripped down my legs. Bloody stripes dripped down the sides of my thighs.

How had I cut myself? I raised my hands, and gasped with horror.

My nails were razor-sharp, a purplish-red color. I’d seen that sinister shade a thousand times before—that triangular shape before.

They looked like rose thorns.

“Oh God, oh God . . .” My heart thundered, my breaths shallowing until I was panting. Thorn claws like the red witch’s? Blackness wavered in my vision, blurring Death, his lair, his hideous ally.

I started to laugh, hysterical sounds bubbling up from my chest, drowning out Death’s promises to return for me, to finish our battle once and for all. I was still laughing when I collapsed backward, head smacking the ground—

At once, I shot upright in my own bed, covered in perspiration. My eyes darted around my room, flitting over the hand-painted walls. Death was gone, Ogen too.

“J-just a dream?”

Right when I was about to yank off the sheet to examine my legs and feet, I heard footsteps clipping down the hall.

I dropped back, closing my eyes an instant before my mother entered. Without even a courtesy knock. “Evie, are you up?” Light flooded in from the hallway.

“Mom?” I said, trying to sound sleepy as I took a frantic mental inventory of my body. Were my feet bleeding, my legs? Was I covered in dirt? Had my fingernails returned to normal?

But all I felt was numbness, as if my entire body were immersed in Novocain.

“I thought I heard you cry out.” Her tone had that alarmed edge to it. Sherlock senses crazy. . . .

“Huh? I must have been dreaming.”

Still dressed for the day, she sat at the end of my bed, her diamond studs flashing. “Your face is so pale. Are you coming down with something?”

“Nope. Not me.” Oh, God, if there was blood on my legs, would it soak through my sheet? If my mom saw those parallel slices, she would probably think I was a closet cutter, like my former roommate at the center.

“I’m worried about you,” she said. “We need to talk about how you’re doing now that you’re back at home.”

“Mom, I told you, everything’s fine.” My legs were bleeding.

Another furtive adjustment of the sheet. Three stripes of crimson were soaking through. She’ll see, she’ll see. . . .

Adjust the sheet, overlap it. There. Better.

“You’ve been back for nearly two weeks, but I haven’t heard you laugh a single time. You always used to joke around, just like your dad.” Her brows drew together. “Evie, what’s . . .” She laid the back of her hand against my damp forehead. “Are you trembling?” She wrapped her arms around me, rocking me. “Baby, I’m here. What’s wrong?”

What’s right? I’d doubled up on my meds tonight—and I was now worse off. “I-I think I just had a bad dream.”

She drew back. “A hallucination?”

“No! I was sound asleep.”

“Honey, just tell me, and I will make this better.”

You didn’t last time. The cure didn’t take! Yet I was so freaked out, I was tempted to reveal all once more.

Instead, I dug deep, resolved to make a stand. I met her gaze, steadying my tone. “I will tell you when I need your help.”

She was taken aback by my demeanor. “Oh.” Because, for a brief moment, I’d sounded just as steely as she usually did. “Um, okay.”

“I’ve got a big day tomorrow. And I’ve really got to get some sleep.” I’m already going to be up for hours, convincing myself that I dreamed those claws.

Mom rose, her gaze wary, almost startled. “Of course. Uh, sweet dreams, honey.”

Once the door closed behind her, I yanked the sheet away, grimacing in advance at what I’d see.

The skin on my thighs was crusting with blood, but my feet were clean and free from gashes.

Maybe I’d just cut myself with my fingernails in sleep. I wanted to latch on to this reasoning, to ignore how realistic Death’s visit had been.

When I recalled his armor, my fingers itched to render his likeness. I reached under my mattress, dragging out my drawing journal.

Pencil flying over the paper, I whispered repeatedly, “Two years and out, two years and out.” A tear dropped onto the page, then another and another—three blurred spots over Death’s otherworldly image.

By the time I’d finished the drawing, the storm pressure was ebbing. No rain for our crops tonight.

And because I was insane, I ached with them.

I gazed down at one of my legs, convinced that I’d merely cut myself during my nightmare. With a curse, I flicked the crusted blood away.

The skin beneath it was . . . unmarked.