Chapter 12
Word traveled quickly that Joy and Tanner weren’t seeing each other anymore, and her recent popularity vanished as quickly as it had begun. The next time she took her tray to the popular dance students’ table, everyone stared at her as if she’d lost her mind, and she retreated, face burning, to sit at an empty table. She had known they would discover sooner or later that she was useless to them as a celebrity conduit, but it still hurt to suddenly become a pariah.
She had more than that weighing on her mind, though. She realized now that it had been foolish to put Melisande so much out of her thoughts, when every moment Joy and Tanner spent together was something stolen from his guardian. And Melisande was dangerous; she should never have forgotten that. Even the photos of her in the gossip rags captured a certain hardness that Joy now recognized. Ruthless. That’s what she was.
Joy thought again about how Melisande had tasted Tanner’s blood before she seduced him. It was a shocking thing to do, but Tanner had been enthralled by it, by everything she did. As if he were hypnotized.
Joy sat up abruptly. She and Maddie had been studying on the front lawn of their dorm, sitting on a blanket with textbooks spread out around them, but she knew there was no chance of being able to focus on music theory or Shakespeare now.
“Maddie,” she said. “This will sound crazy, but do you think Melisande could be a vampire?”
Her roommate didn’t even look up from her notes. “Metaphorically? Sure.”
“No, I mean an actual vampire.” Joy hadn’t told her how Tanner had come to be Melisande’s protégé, and she gave her a quick rundown now, omitting the more intimate parts. “What keeps coming up is this ability she has to mesmerize people. And she’s so pale, and she doesn’t seem to age. Tanner himself said that her crowd doesn’t get up before sundown.”
Maddie made a doubtful face. “I’m sorry, Joy, but I don’t believe in any of that stuff. I think she’s just a crazy celebrity on a power trip, and she likes nightlife and Botox. Or maybe,” and she straightened up, squinting as she thought, “maybe she’s one of those weirdos who like to think they’re vampires. You know, they get fitted with fangs at the dentist’s and do these blood-exchange rituals while listening to whatever wristcutter music is trendy that week.” She could see Joy wasn’t happy with this theory. “Okay, well, look at it this way. Tanner should know, right? And has he ever said he had any suspicions like that?”
“Well, no.” Joy chewed on this. “But she could be doing a mind whammy on him.” Or perhaps he was as much of a skeptic as Maddie, and rationalized away whatever Melisande did. Joy had always been on the skeptical side herself, but the more she learned of Melisande, the more she got the uneasy feeling that she was in the presence of something not quite normal, or even not quite human—especially now that she knew firsthand that the world didn’t always follow rational rules.
Seeing that she still hadn’t convinced Maddie, she sighed and gave up. “I’m probably just trying to find a good reason I hate her so much.”
“Or maybe an excuse to put a stake through her heart, if she has one,” said Maddie. “I don’t think you really need another reason to hate her. She’s given you plenty already.”
Joy couldn’t stop turning the idea over, though. She knew that Melisande was deadly dangerous, and she couldn’t find a solid reason for that conviction.
At length Maddie packed up her books. “I’m going to grab a coffee with William. Want to come with?” The two of them had made up after William’s meltdown, and they seemed to be as close as ever.
Joy opted instead to walk over to the library to study there. Sometimes she could focus better indoors. The periodicals section had sofas, which made it the most popular study area, so it was usually full, as it was today. She tried the reference section next, and found a free space at a table where she could spread out her notes and books.
She was still having a hard time focusing, though. She found herself staring across the room at the antique oil painting that hung by the reference counter. It was a Dante Gabriel Rossetti, purchased by Cavanaugh himself, and its subject was the Keats poem “La Belle Dame Sans Merci.” She had seen it hundreds of times without really noticing it. But now she felt drawn to take a closer look. She slipped out of her seat and walked up to the painting.
Against a detailed, brilliantly colored landscape were posed the figures of a woman on horseback and a knight in armor walking alongside. The woman’s long dark hair floated in the breeze, and she was smiling a cruel smile at the knight, whose face was turned adoringly up to her. Joy knew the poem, and she knew that the knight’s infatuation with the beautiful “fairy’s child” would be his undoing.
It was too close to home, too much what she was afraid was happening to Tanner. There were even physical resemblances in the painting: the knight’s full, curved mouth, a Rossetti trademark, was just like Tanner’s.
Perhaps even now Melisande was exercising her power over him to punish him for spending time with Joy. And there was nothing Joy could do about it.
The thought stung like a slap. Anxious now to get away from the painting and its associations, she turned away too abruptly, tripped over her own feet, and found herself losing her balance. Her hand shot out to brace herself, but the wall wasn’t where she expected, and she almost fell before her outflung arm found a solid surface.
Then she stood and stared.
Where the reference room usually ended in a solid wall, there was an entryway to another wing Joy had never seen before.
Study carrels lined the opposite wall, and their windows looked out on a brilliantly sunny day. It had been overcast when Joy entered the reference section; she had had to turn on the table lamp. But this room was bright with sunlight. Some of the carrels were occupied, but she didn’t recognize any of the students.
A girl who had laughed at Joy’s graceless entrance looked contrite. “Sorry,” she whispered. “You okay?”
Joy nodded. Her mouth had gone dry. “Is this the Ash Grove library?” she managed.
One of the other students shushed her. The first girl whispered, “Of course. Are you lost?”
“I think so. I just came from the reference section—” and she turned to point back in the direction from which she had come. When she turned her head back to the carrels, she bumped her nose against a wall. The wall that should have been there the entire time.
The carrels, the students, the entire other wing had vanished.
Joy fell back a step, her heart beating rapidly. The wall looked every bit as solid as it ever had. There was no sign of a door. When she put out her hand, it met solid plaster.
She knocked a stack of books off the counter in her haste to get out.
She was hollering for Gail Brody even before she was through the front door of the dorm. Gail was sitting in her favorite position, cross-legged on her living room floor with a book, but one look at Joy and she was on her feet, putting her arm around her.
“What is it?” she said at once. “Are you okay? Tell me what I can do.”
“You can show me where your bathroom is,” Joy croaked. “I think I’m going to throw up.”
When she emerged, she was still trembling. Gail led her to the sofa and put a mug of hot tea in her hands. When Joy had calmed down enough to tell her the full story, she said, “This is something Dr. Aysgarth needs to know about.”
“Why? Do you think I’m losing my mind?”
“Not at all. I believe you were there—that you found your way into a part of the library that hasn’t been built yet. And that’s exactly why I’ve got to tell Dr. Aysgarth.” She gave Joy’s shoulder a squeeze. “First, tell me again about everything you remember. Absolutely everything, no matter how trivial it seems. And then—”
“Yes?”
“And then go run yourself a bubble bath and soak til you’re red as a boiled lobster. It’s my favorite treatment for shock. Or at least,” she conceded, “it’s the best I can advise for someone und
er twenty-one.”
The next afternoon she was called to Dr. Aysgarth’s office. When she arrived, the secretary told her that the principal was waiting for her in the conference room down the hall. Perplexed, Joy went and knocked at the door.
“Come in, Joy. Close the door behind you, please.”
Dr. Aysgarth sat at the head of the conference table, a laptop computer open in front of her. Along the sides was a motley assortment of adults, from Gail to Mo to the PhysEd teacher to the school nurse. Almost half of them Joy had never seen before.
Gail gave her a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry, you’re not in any trouble. In fact, we thought you might be able to help us out.”
“How?” She took a seat at the foot of the table, since it was the only vacant chair.
“We think you may have been involved in a time slip, or another kind of dimensional anomaly,” said Mo. He said this as matter-of-factly as if he were ordering in a restaurant.
“A what was that?” she said.
Dr. Aysgarth said, “We’re going to have to give you some more background. But first you should meet the other member of our council.” She turned the laptop around to face Joy, and she saw a familiar face on the screen.
“Hey there, kittycat,” said her father.