“It’s gone, Alex, whatever it was, it’s gone.” Shelby grabbed for my elbow, trying to find purchase on my moving arm. “What’s wrong? Let me see.”
“No.” I closed my eyes tightly, gritting my teeth against the urge to shout for Sarah again. “Can you please get me to the kitchen table?”
“Alex, this really isn’t the time—”
“Please!”
She went momentarily silent before she said, “All right, Alex. There’s no need to shout.” Her hand caught my elbow. “It’s this way.”
“Thank you.” The pain was like nothing I had ever felt before. It was definitely something I never wanted to feel again.
“What’s going on? What was that thing? What’s the matter with your eyes?”
“I don’t know what it was, but you’re going to need to trust me for a minute, okay?” If only the backyard had been better lit. I hadn’t been able to see the thing that got me well enough to tell whether or not its wings had feathers. Feathers would mean basilisk; lack of feathers meant cockatrice. “My cousin is in the other room. She can’t hear me with the TV on. Go get her.”
“Alex . . .”
“Please.” The pain in my eyes wasn’t getting better, and in this situation, that was a good thing. Stone doesn’t hurt.
There had been a thick pane of glass between me and the creature, even if it wasn’t properly polarized, and petrifaction is known to be less effective at a distance. Those factors combined might be enough to save my vision.
“I don’t understand any of this.” Shelby sounded more irritated than frightened. Good. Irritation was easier to work with.
“Just go get Sarah, please. She’ll be able to get the first aid kit.”
“All right—but you’re going to explain everything,” snarled Shelby. I heard footsteps as she moved away, followed by the sound of the kitchen door swinging open. I slumped in my chair, resisting the urge to rub my eyes. That would just cause me more pain, and might result in structural damage.
Everything was dark. I tried to focus on the last thing I’d seen, the creature on the back lawn with the wildly flapping wings and the serpent’s tail. Feathers or no feathers? The more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that its wings had been more like a bat’s than a bird’s, but that could have been wishful thinking, me refusing to acknowledge that this could be my fault. If its wings weren’t feathered, it wasn’t one of my basilisks.
How would one of the basilisks get this far from the zoo? The thought was compelling. Basilisks aren’t fast movers, and they’re extremely territorial, especially when the females get broody. If the zoo basilisks had managed to escape, they should have gone to ground on the spot, refusing to be budged.
The door banged again as Shelby returned. “Alex? Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. Did you find Sarah?”
“This is a positively appalling way to make an introduction, but yeah, I found her,” said Shelby. “She’s getting that first aid kit you wanted. Now are you going to tell me what’s going on?”
“Can we take this one step at a time for right now? Can you go to the fridge, please? There should be a bunch of bottles of water with different colored caps on the second shelf. Get one of the green-capped bottles. Please.”
“I know they say ‘please’ is a magic word, but it doesn’t actually control the universe, you know.”
“Shelby! I’m trying to not freak out right now, so please, can you go along with my seemingly irrational demands until we reach the point where I am capable of explaining myself in a calm and rational manner? Please?”
There was a pause. Finally, Shelby said, “The green lid, you say?”
“That’s the one.”
The kitchen door swung open again, followed by the soft sound of bare feet against the floor. “I found the first aid kit. It was not in the land of talking bluebirds, although they’re very loud right now. Alex, what did you do?”
“I locked eyes with a petrifactor,” I said. “Sarah, can you read right now?”
There was a momentary pause before she said, “Not reliably. Numbers are easier.”
“Okay. We can work with this. Shelby, give the bottle of water to Sarah and take the first aid kit. I need you to look for a vial labeled ‘belladonna.’”
“What in the world would belladonna be doing in your first aid kit?”
The pain in my eyes was starting to fade. I couldn’t tell if that meant my nerves were becoming overloaded, or if it was a sign that the damage was getting worse. Either option was bad. “Hopefully, saving my vision. Once you’ve found the belladonna—it should be a clear liquid—look for a jar of bilberry jam.”
“You keep jam in your first aid kit. Alongside the belladonna.” Now Shelby sounded outright skeptical. That wasn’t good. I wanted her to help me, not call the authorities to report my nervous breakdown.
“It’s a very specialized first aid kit,” I said, as patiently as I could. “Once you have the belladonna and bilberry, you need to mix them into the water Sarah’s got. Then—”
“What, there’s more? Should I be getting a cauldron?”
“A cauldron would be lovely,” said Sarah.
“We’re getting off track here,” I said sharply. “There is a small refrigerator in the pantry. Open it. On the second shelf you will find a rack of antivenin. Get the vial labeled ‘P. cockatrice’ and bring it here.”
“Alex, this is madness. If you’re really hurt, we need to get you to a hospital, not sit about playing chemistry lab with your cousin.”
“A hospital wouldn’t help me,” I said. “Now please.”
Something about my voice must have gotten through; maybe it was the desperation. There was a pause before Shelby sighed and said, “Oh, what the hell. It’s not like I had anything better to do this evening.”
I groaned, and stayed where I was, hands clapped over my face, as I listened to my girlfriend and my cousin mixing the substance that might—if fate was kind and I’d been correct in my split-second taxonomical classification—save my eyesight. It was the longest five minutes of my life. Sarah occasionally offered murmured corrections, equally divided between “useful” and “complete non sequitur.” It would have been entertaining if I hadn’t been in so damn much pain.
“How much jam?” asked Shelby.
“Three large tablespoons full.”
“And how much belladonna?”
“The same.”
Shelby muttered something that sounded suspiciously like “moron” and kept rattling around the kitchen, the clatter of her shoes followed by the softer padding of Sarah’s bare feet. I heard the pantry door open. “Second rack?”
“That’s the one. Be careful with the vial. It’s all we have, and there’s none back at the reptile house.”
“I can’t see why you think you need antivenin, you only looked at the thing—”
“Please.”
Shelby sighed. “I’m a fool for not loading you straight into my car and rushing you to the emergency room,” she said. There was a soft thud on the table in front of me. “The gunk you asked us to mash up is near your right elbow. Mind you don’t spill it, although what else you’re going to do with it is a mystery to me.”
“I’m going to apply it to the affected areas,” I said. I lowered my hands. The unyielding darkness that had replaced the room did not change.
Shelby’s gasp was followed by Sarah saying serenely, “Don’t worry, Alex, I caught the antivenin before it could hit the ground.”
“Well, that’s my nightmares sorted for the next week,” I said sourly as I began feeling around the table for the jar of jam, belladonna, and purified unicorn water.