Elixir

  I gazed at the heading. I’d heard the word, but I had a strong feeling that in this context it had nothing to do with music. “Incubus?” I asked Ben.

  He nodded grimly. “A lost soul—usually male—turned evil spirit that attaches itself to someone in order to lead her astray. The spirit is kind of … sexual in nature.” He reddened and gestured to the picture. “Like it shows there. The incubus comes to a woman and has … you know … relations with her in her sleep.”

  My jaw dropped, and I was glad Ben’s eyes were averted as an exhilarating stream of images from my dreams flashed at super-speed through my head. I didn’t realize I’d been holding my breath until it came out in a whoosh that I tried to pass off as a laugh.

  “It’s not funny, Clea.”

  “It’s insane. Even if there were such a thing as an evil spirit, wouldn’t it be obvious if I’d spent my whole life stalked by one? Wouldn’t terrible things have happened to me?”

  “Maybe they will. Maybe he’s just been waiting for the right time. Maybe that time is now, and that’s why all of a sudden you see him everywhere.”

  “So he’s a patient evil spirit,” I said sarcastically.

  “Know what else comes from the same Latin root as ‘incubus’?” Ben retorted. “Incubate. I don’t think it’s coincidence. I think this … thing has been incubating, and now it’s ready to come out and do whatever it’s going to do. And I think your dad would agree with me.”

  “You have no idea what my dad would think,” I shot back jealously … but I knew that wasn’t true. In the last half hour Ben had proven he knew my dad far better than I had ever realized … maybe far better than I’d known him myself.

  Ben reached up to twine his fingers in his hair, then drew them out. “I’m sorry. I know this is a lot. It’s just … this is the real reason your dad hired me. Once you started traveling, he knew you’d be away a lot, and he wanted someone around who knew all this and could keep an eye out for anything strange. He worried about you. I worry about you too.”

  He was worried; I could see it in his eyes. Whether or not I could buy into his and Dad’s theories about the man in the pictures, I knew for sure they both only wanted to protect me, and that was something I had to respect.

  “Okay,” I said. “So what do you think we should do?”

  “I think we should skip the trip to Rio.”

  “Are you crazy? Why? What does one thing have to do with the other?”

  “Maybe nothing,” Ben admitted, “but Rio wasn’t exactly the safest place in the world for your dad. If this thing is getting ready to make some kind of move, I don’t think we should make it easier by going someplace dangerous.”

  “If you really believe the ‘thing’ isn’t human, it shouldn’t matter where I am, right? He can make a move in my own bedroom.”

  Bad choice of words. I felt myself redden, and quickly moved on.

  “Besides, Dad also thought the guy could be my guardian angel. Are you forgetting that?”

  “Does he look like a guardian angel?”

  He did not look like a guardian angel, but everything I knew about him made me believe he couldn’t possibly be evil.

  Of course, everything I knew about him—no matter how real it felt—was just a figment of my imagination … wasn’t it?

  Just like guardian angels and incubi were figments of the imagination.

  I had to get back to dealing with facts. One fact was that something bizarre was going on, but I’d be far more likely to find an explanation in a modern book on string theory than in an ancient tome on the spirit world. The other fact was that my whole life, Dad had apparently known this bizarre thing was going on, and had neglected to tell the one person most obviously impacted by it.

  “Why did my dad tell you about these pictures and not me?” I asked.

  “We talked about that. He told me that when you were little he didn’t want to scare you. And when you were older, you were too much like your mom and would never believe him.”

  I smiled. Dad was right, and in that moment I felt like he was with us in the room. I also realized something—I did know him better than Ben did. I knew what he would think.

  “Dad knew about this thing my whole life,” I said, “but he never let it get in the way of what I wanted to do. I can’t either. We’re going to Rio.”

  Ben opened his mouth to object, but he knew better. He just sighed.

  “Okay … we’re going to Rio.”

  That evening a FedEx envelope arrived from my mom, containing the notarized permission I needed for the flight to Brazil. She included a note with it: I still don’t like it, but I trust you’ll make the choice that’s right for you. Love, Mom.

  The trip was on.

  As I went to bed that night, I couldn’t help but wonder if what I’d learned would change what happened in my dreams. Would the man still be there? Would he act the same? I was dying to know, but unfortunately it turns out it’s almost impossible to fall asleep when you’re actively chasing a specific dream. By two in the morning I’d given up and was playing solitaire in bed while watching an old sitcom on TV. I’d planned to pad downstairs the minute the show ended and make a pot of tea, but it never happened.

  Instead I found myself sitting at Dalt’s.

  I was at the counter, watching the cook flip several burgers and a large apple pie on the grill. The door squeaked open, and though I didn’t even raise my eyes, I knew it was him. I felt the air change when he entered, the force of him as he strode across the diner, and the heat of his body mere inches from mine as he sat.

  Electricity leaped between us, and his eyes burned into me, but I still wouldn’t turn to face him.

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  “You know who I am,” he replied. “I’m yours.”

  The cook expertly flipped a burger and pressed it down with his spatula. The meat sizzled and spluttered in the grease.

  “Should I be frightened?” I asked.

  “Why bother?” he replied. “It’ll all end the same.”

  The cook slid a plate in front of me: a hot, juicy burger, shining greasily on an open-faced bun.

  Only it wasn’t a burger at all. It was a grilled tarantula.

  I gasped and looked up at the cook. It was Ben, beads of sweat dripping from his forehead. He winked and pointed his spatula to the grill, where six more huge spiders spluttered and sizzled away.

  Horrified, I turned away … and came face-to-face with the man, his eyes as deep and intoxicating as ever … only now they stared out at me from a rotting skull.

  “Kiss me,” he hissed. I wanted to run, but I couldn’t move, and as the creature leaned toward me and unhinged its horrible mouth, I saw inside an endless swirling mass of inky black nothingness I knew would pull me closer and closer until I drowned inside.…

  I bolted upright in bed and realized with horror that there was something clinging to my face. I clawed wildly at it and scratched away …

  … a playing card.

  “Ugh!” I groaned, tossing it aside.

  So my dreamtime love was now the stuff of nightmares. Good. Better, really. I’d have more perspective that way.

  But the nightmares didn’t last. Nor did my regular romantic fantasies come back. The two somehow morphed together. For the next two nights I was plagued by far more terrible dreams, dreams that were sticky with reality, but a terrible, disjointed reality, where nothing made sense, but it was all incredibly vivid.

  I was Olivia. I was in a beautiful room that glowed like the sun. A circle of others were with me, all of them draped in clothing so bright that it hurt my eyes.

  He was with me, holding my hand. He smiled … then blood started pouring out of his chest, his arms, his legs … gushing and running down his body, but he seemed to have no idea. He kept smiling, and he gave my hand a comforting squeeze. I screamed, but he didn’t seem to notice.

  I looked around for help, but all I saw were the two decrepit, half-buried vials from my da
d’s archaeological dig. A raven-haired woman with dancing black eyes picked up the vials and held them out to me, laughing wildly as a long cut opened up in her throat and blood began to flow. I turned away from the sight and came face-to-face with Giovanni, my love’s best friend.

  “Giovanni!” I cried. “Help me! Help us!”

  “Shh,” he said, a finger to his lips. “It’s better this way … it’s all for the best.”

  I didn’t understand—what was for the best? I was desperate for answers, but he didn’t say a word. I didn’t even see the heavy object he picked up until it came barreling toward my head.

  The next night was stranger and even more surreal. I was Anneline. It was my wedding day, and I walked down the aisle toward the man, grinning for all I was worth. I was almost at his side when I realized the man walking me down the aisle wasn’t my father, but Ben.

  Actually, not Ben. He seemed like Ben, but he looked different. Broader. Taller? Julien. His name was Julien. He stopped me just before I reached my fiancé. Smiling down at me, he pulled out a long-stemmed rose … and pushed it gently through my dress, adding the littlest bit of pressure to pierce it into my heart.

  I gasped as I felt the thorns slice my flesh and slide through my body.

  “Julien … !”

  He kept smiling, and steered me to the altar. No one seemed to notice the rose impaling me. The guests, the priests, my groom—everyone smiled peacefully as the ceremony continued and I struggled to breathe, blood now spreading across my white dress. As the priest spoke, Julien pulled out another rose.

  “No,” I begged, but he didn’t listen. He studied me closely, then threaded this flower through my body, arranging it perfectly next to the other.

  I stood there at the altar, gripping my bloodstained bouquet of white irises, looking desperately for help to everyone around me, but no one paid attention, not even when I hit the floor and faded into nothingness.…

  It was terrible. In just a few nights I had gone from craving my dreams to dreading them. Even when I woke up, I couldn’t shake the gummy horror of the visions, and I started feeling like my regular life was the fantasy, and the gut-wrenching dreams were real life.

  What was happening to me?

  five

  WHATEVER WAS HAPPENING, there was absolutely no way I could let myself fall asleep during the twelve-hour trip to Rio with Ben. He was already freaked out about the pictures—if he saw me flailing and crying in my sleep, he’d lose it. Or worse, the other dreams could come back—the ones so good I could feel every touch. I could only imagine what I looked like when I dreamed those. No way could I let Ben see that. I’d die.

  I didn’t close my eyes during the trip, and I was exhausted by the time we landed. I followed Ben in a zombielike daze as we got our luggage, rented a Jeep, drove to the hotel, checked in, and split off to our separate rooms. The bed looked so good, but the people at GloboReach were expecting us, so I reluctantly changed and got ready to go.

  Outside the hotel, I breathed in the salty air and let Rio bring me back to life. Its energy was palpable: The beach teemed with wealthy tourists in designer bikinis and sunglasses, and the wide streets swarmed with local musicians and people waiting eagerly for that night’s Samba Parade—the highlight of Carnival.

  Ben drove the Jeep. I kicked back my seat, slipped off my shoes, and rested my feet on the dash, letting my limbs bask in the baking sun as we drove to the outpost. There had been snow on the ground when we left Connecticut; here it was ninety degrees. Despite everything, I felt light and free in my cutoff shorts, white tank top, and sunglasses, liberated from the ten pounds of coats and sweaters I’d been wearing at home.

  The GloboReach camp where my dad had last been seen was just outside one of the more notorious favelas, the slums outside the city. It wasn’t far from our hotel, but it was a world away. As we got closer, the streets grew narrow and unpaved, and I could almost feel the looming sense of violence my dad had told me was so rampant here. He’d said it was bizarre to see how close the favelas were to the decadence of Copacabana, but I didn’t really get it until I experienced it firsthand. I took out my camera and started snapping pictures, hoping one of my usual magazines would print them, so I could share the experience with the world.

  When we arrived at the camp, we were met by a man who looked more like a college quarterback than a physician. He was tall and broad, and sported camouflage shorts, a T-shirt, and a shaved head.

  “Clea Raymond,” he said as we got out of the car. “Welcome to GloboReach. I’m Dr. Prichard.” He pulled out his cell phone and added, “One moment.”

  One moment? I looked curiously at Ben.

  “Hello ma’am, Dr. Prichard here,” he said into the phone. “Yes, ma’am. She’s here. … Yes, with her friend. … Yes, that’s him. … You have my word. … Yes, of course.”

  He held the phone out to me. “Your mom.”

  Unbelievable. I took the phone. “Mom???”

  “I know, you’re not a child. I just want you to know you don’t have to go through with this. If it’s too hard, there’s no shame in saying good-bye and going back to the hotel.”

  “Mom … I’m fine.”

  “I just worry, Clea.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I want to do this, Mom. Look, I promise if it’s too hard I’ll leave. Okay?”

  “Okay. Good. I love you.”

  “Love you, too.”

  We clicked off, and I handed the phone back to Dr. Prichard, shaking off the mom moment. “Sorry about that,” I said.

  “No need. Want me to show you around?”

  Dr. Prichard was all business. I could see how my dad would like him. He took us on the tour, and when we had seen the entire camp, he offered us seats outside his quarters. We sat, and I wiped my suddenly sweaty palms on my shorts. I’d been dying to have a conversation with this man for a year, but now that he was in front of me, it was hard to find the right way in. I decided to just go for it—he seemed like the kind of man who’d appreciate directness.

  “So … what can you tell me about my dad’s disappearance?”

  Dr. Prichard nodded. He’d known this was coming. “I’m sorry, but I really don’t have anything else to add to the story. It’s exactly what I told everyone else: He left camp without telling anyone where he was going, the same way he did all the time. Only this time he didn’t come back.”

  The words hung awkwardly between us. Then Dr. Prichard cleared his throat. “I’m sorry if that was too blunt. Your father was a good man. I respected him a great deal.”

  “No, it’s fine. Thank you. I appreciate your honesty, and I know you’ve told the whole story before. It’s just … if you could think about it … if there’s anything else you can remember about the day he disappeared, anything at all, even if it seems completely insignificant … it would mean so much to me.”

  Dr. Prichard nodded again. He squinted into the sun, thinking it over. I kept quiet, giving him space. Finally he ran his hand over his scalp in a way that made me wonder if it was a gesture left over from the days before he’d shaved his head.

  “Okay,” he said, “I do have something. Just know that I do think it’s completely insignificant.“

  “That’s okay,” I assured him. “I’d still love to hear it.”

  “We deal with a lot of heavy stuff at this camp,” Dr. Prichard said. “One in five people who come to us has had a family member killed, and most of them have direct experience with violent acts. Seeing that again and again … it can wear you down. Your dad never let it. He always kept things light around here. He made jokes, he planned goofball things for us and the community—stupid stuff, like games of charades and obstacle courses—things to take our mind off the worst of it. But in the last few days before he disappeared, he wasn’t like that. He was serious. Somber, even. Like he was wrestling with something.”

  “Do you know what it was?” I asked. “Was anything going on around camp? Maybe with a patient?”

  “Not
that I know of. My guess? A bad meal that tied his intestines in knots. Wouldn’t be the first time that happened here. I told you, anything that mattered I’ve already said. But you asked, so …”

  He got up. I guessed our conversation was done.

  Ben and I rose as well. “Thank you,” I said. “You have no idea how much I appreciate your time.”

  We all said our good-byes, then Ben and I climbed into the Jeep and started back to the hotel.

  “It’s interesting,” Ben said, putting a voice to my thoughts, “but it doesn’t really give us anything to go on.”

  “Maybe not,” I agreed, but my mind was already racing. What could have changed Dad’s mood? Had something gone wrong with a patient? Or maybe an ex-patient—someone outside the camp, so Dr. Prichard wouldn’t have known. Maybe there was a family he tried to save from the drug trade. Could he have gotten too deeply involved, and had someone taken drastic steps to get him to butt out?

  GloboReach technically belonged to our family now—I was sure I could find a way to get all Dad’s files and go through them, see if any of his past patients or their families were involved in something shady that Dad might have gotten into.

  Then again, didn’t Dr. Prichard say nearly everyone they dealt with had experience with violent acts? There must be an endless list of Dad’s ex-patients who could have inadvertently led him into something dangerous. The search could take forever, and I still might not find out anything for sure.

  Ben leaned on the horn, and I snapped out of my reverie. We were caught behind a massive crowd of people dancing in the streets around a sound truck blaring samba music. Instinctively I stood in my seat for a better look, hooked my sunglasses over my shirt, and started snapping pictures.

  “That’s really not safe,” Ben said.

  “We’re moving two miles an hour. I’ll be okay.”

  And truthfully, the longer I lingered behind my camera, and the longer the samba music seeped into my system, the more I felt okay, and let everything else melt away. The whole scene in the streets was irresistible—the thrumming from the sound truck was enhanced by live drummers in feathered and beaded costumes. I didn’t even realize I was moving my hips to the beat until Ben called me on it.