9

-56:33

Gia glanced at the clock: almost eleven thirty.

Jack had dozed off while awaiting his turn at the Compendium. She'd gone upstairs to check on Vicky, asleep in Gia's bed, and then forced herself to peek into Vicky's bedroom in the hope the Lilitongue had decided to move on. It hadn't. It hung there in the air like… like nothing she'd ever seen or imagined.

After that she moved herself and the Compendium to the kitchen so as not to disturb Jack. Her mind screamed for sleep and her eyes burned like coals, but she couldn't stop. And she didn't want anyone else to take over, couldn't let go of this book until she'd read every word.

So far the words offered no hope. They did, however, depict a world rife with wonders and horrors. People and objects and devices with strange powers and obscure purposes. If even a small fraction of what the Compendium described was true, then life on Earth, existence itself, was far stranger than she ever could have imagined.

But nowhere, at least so far, had she found another mention of the Lilitongue of Gefreda. She was losing—

No. She wouldn't give up hope.

She turned the page and found a heading: Remedies.

Probably just a lot of folk medicine—herbal potions and poultices and the like. A long section. Her impulse was to skip over it, but she'd promised herself to read every word, so that was what she'd do.

As she skimmed through the pages she found lotions to cure everything from scales to boils, elixirs to heal everything from diarrhea to blindness, solutions to—

The words Stealing the Stain leaped out at her.

Gia closed her eyes before reading further. Please, God, let it be about the Lilitongue stain—not wine stains or bloodstains, but the Stain.

Then she did a quick scan of the text and gasped when she spotted "Lilitongue of Gefreda." This was it!

But hadn't the Lilitongue text—she knew it by heart now—said that once acquired, the Stain may not be shed—not by cleansing, not even by flaying the Stained skin. Nor may it be given to another.

Then how…?

Never mind the contradiction. Learn what it says.

She found a list of ingredients—things like sodium bicarbonate and tartaric acid and juice of the seeds of the vanilla planifolia orchid, among others. Where on earth was she going to find—?

Wait. She had some of them right here in the kitchen.

She hopped up and darted to the cabinet with her baking ingredients. She spun the lazy Susan until she spotted her box of baking soda. The label said "sodium bicarbonate."

Yes! Such a common item… but maybe not so common back when the Compendium was written.

Another spin and she found her bottle of vanilla extract.

She hurried to the computer and Googled vanilla extract:

Vanilla Beans are the long, greenish-yellow seedpods of the tropical orchid plant, Vanilla planifolia. Before the plant flowers, the pods are picked, unripe, and cured until they're dark brown. The process takes up to six months. To obtain Pure Vanilla Extract, cured Vanilla Beans are steeped in alcohol. According to law, Pure Vanilla Extract must be 35 percent alcohol by volume.

Alcohol… the recipe or whatever it was didn't mention alcohol. But if she boiled that off she'd be left with juice of the seeds of the vanilla planifolia orchid—probably pretty hard to come by in the old days.

Going back and forth between the Compendium and the lazy Susan Gia discovered she had five of the eleven ingredients. But she didn't have a clue as to where to find crushed monkshood petals and dried red fly agaric. From what she learned through the Internet, she figured she could probably find the missing ingredients in some of the more esoteric ethnic herb shops downtown. She knew of one in Chinatown that sold the weirdest things.

She read further. The instructions were easy: Mix up the solution, wet your hand with it, then lay your hand palm down on the Stain and wish—yes, wish for it to leave the Stained.

Sounded like voodoo. And seemed too simple. But no downside to trying.

Then she read the final paragraph. There would be a price to pay.

Gia folded her arms on the book, lowered her head, and sobbed.

TUESDAY

1

-47:12

Gia found the little shop she sought on Bayard Street. It had a name but it was written in Chinese. She didn't care what it was called. The important thing was that it was open.

Thank God.

A little after midnight Jack had awakened and taken over perusing the Compendium. Gia showed him where she'd left off—just beyond the Remedies section—and he'd picked up from there. She hadn't mentioned the "Stain Removal."

They'd alternated two-hour shifts through the night. Jack managed to doze between his but Gia found sleep impossible. She'd discovered what might—might—be a way out for Vicky. She prayed it would work. If it did, she'd deal with the price afterward.

She'd watched the clock all night, watched the sky through the window, waiting for dawn. Around seven thirty she'd left Jack dozing and slipped out, hailed a cab, and rode it to Chinatown.

As she stepped through the door of the tiny shop she half expected the proprietor to be elderly with a wispy white beard and dressed like a mandarin. Instead she found a gaunt young man, maybe thirty, dressed in a black T-shirt and black jeans.

She handed him the list of ingredients. He studied it, then frowned and pointed to the third item: crushed monkshood petals.

"This poison."

Poison? Oh, no.

"It… it can't be."

"Yes. Kill you dead you eat. Rub on skin, okay, but not for eat."

That was a relief. Sort of.

"I understand. This will be used on skin. What about the rest? Have you got the rest?"

He nodded. "Yes. Not lot, but some."

"Some will do just fine."

He squinted at her. "This very strange list. What you use for?"

"An experiment. A successful one, I hope."

A few minutes later she was hurrying up to Canal Street to find a cab.

2

-46:51

She found Jack bent over the Compendium. He looked up as Gia entered the kitchen. His eyes were red and bleary. She was sure hers were no better.

"Where've you been, Gi? I've been worried about you."

She tried to keep her expression neutral. She didn't want to give anything away.

"I left you a note."

"Yeah: 'Went out for some things. Be back soon.' What things?"

"Ingredients."

"For?"

She pointed to the Compendium. "Something I saw in there. A recipe for a stain remover."

His eyes widened as he began leafing back through the pages. "Where? Where?"

"Somewhere near the middle," she said, then quickly added, "Don't bother. I wrote down all the ingredients."

"But didn't the book say it can't be removed, even if you cut away the skin?"

"No. It said it may not be 'shed.' There's a difference between shedding and having it removed by someone else."

"Sounds like a lot of parsing, but…"

"But what have we got to lose?"

He nodded. "Right."

Gia hoped that would be enough, that he wouldn't go back to search for the page.

She found a saucepan, emptied the bottle of vanilla extract into it, and turned on the gas. While that was heating she laid out the other ten ingredients.

She consulted her notes—many times; she could barely think—and measured the proper proportions of the other ingredients. She noticed her hands trembling.

When the vanilla extract came to a boil, she took it off to let it cool. Then she began blending the rest in a stainless steel mixing bowl.