Enchanted Ivy (18 page)

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Through the red orange glare, she saw the Feeder shoot fire at her grandfather again. This time, a fireball grazed Grandpa's arm, and his sleeve burst into flame.

Lily tried to scream again, but her voice was a croak. She tasted smoke, and she tried to crawl from the trees. Her muscles quivered and gave way. Through the screen of leaves, she saw Grandpa drop to the ground. She had to help him! Lily thrust her fingers into the roots of the underbrush. "Smother the fire," she whispered. She saw leaves curl toward the flickers of flame. She saw the unicorn's horn slice down toward Grandpa. ...

And then she blacked out.

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CHAPTER Ten

Lily woke to her mother's singing. She blinked her eyes open as Mom planted a kiss on her forehead and sang, "Good morning, sleepyhead!"

"Morning," Lily mumbled.
What a bizarre dream,
she thought. She rolled onto her back and stretched. Above her, the ceiling was decorated with intricate swirls of vines and leaves and flowers.

She sat up quickly and faced the drawing of the Chained Dragon by the window, precise and elegant on the cratered plaster wall. It hadn't been a dream. She looked down at her hand. Someone had unbandaged it. The dragon bites were uneven bumps, closer to cat bites than the gashes they'd been just yesterday.

Yesterday.

An image flashed through her mind: Grandpa, falling

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on the grass, flames licking his arm, a unicorn's horn about to stab ... "Where's Grandpa?" she asked. She tried not to sound panicked.

"Grandpa's friend, that Mr. Mayweather or something, called to say they'd be breakfasting at his club," Mom said. She smiled brightly as she added, "We're to scavenge for ourselves. Like squirrels!"

Grandpa was alive.
Oh, thank God!
She felt her ribs release, and she could breathe again. Lily clasped her hands together so Mom wouldn't see they were shaking. If Mom had any idea what had happened last night ... "You dyed your hair," Lily said. Mom's hair was neon orange.

"Like it?" Mom said, touching a few strands.

Lily peered closer. Mom's scalp was bright orange, and she had a streak of orange on her forehead. "That's not hair dye."

"Spray paint," Mom said.

Lily flopped back down on the bed. A spring poked into her back. "Ow." She wondered if hair-color obsession was Mom's own quirk or a dryad trait. She wondered how much of Mom's personality was her own and how much was due to her tree-ish-ness. She wondered how angry Grandpa was that Lily hadn't stayed hidden last night.

"I knew you wouldn't like it. Bought you a bribe to win your forgiveness." Mom yanked a shirt out of a bag and tossed it to Lily.

Lily caught it, sat up, and spread it out on her lap. It had

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an orange
P
and a tiger. She touched the tiger and thought of Tye. She hadn't realized how brave he was to try to bring Feeders home. They didn't
want
to break their addiction. "Thanks," she said belatedly. "Wait, you went shopping on your own?"

Mom patted Lily's shoulder. "You're such a worrier. I was fine."

Only because she'd been lucky. If she'd run into a Feeder ... For an instant, Lily considered telling her mother the truth right then, without waiting for Grandpa.
You're not human,
she could say.
You're from an alternate world. Oh, and about the monsters from your nightmares? Yeah, they exist.
Mom would force-feed her medicine if Lily said any of that. "Did Mr. Mayfair say anything else when he called?" Lily asked.

"He certainly did," Mom said.

Lily felt her heart skip a beat. "What did he tell you?"

Mom threw her arms around Lily. "I am so proud of you, I could burst! Princeton girl! I'm sorry that I put pressure on you. But I knew you wouldn't fail. You never fail at anything."

Oh. That. "It's not official yet," Lily said. "It doesn't count until the letter is in my hand. Besides, I might still apply to schools near Philly."

"Absolutely not!" Mom gripped Lily's shoulders. "Now, you listen to me. I am not letting you sacrifice your future to take care of me. This place is your dream!"

Her dream had a few hidden nightmares in it. But Mom was right. Until the Old Boys changed their minds, she was

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a Princeton prefrosh. She'd wanted this forever. She should remember to be happy about it.

Mom handed her a Ziploc full of toiletries. "We'll buy you one of those bathroom caddies. And flip-flops. College girls shower in flip-flops. I'm not sure why."

"Remember the time we both refused to clean the apartment and waited to see who would break first?" Lily asked.

Mom grinned. "We wrote poems in the dust and grime."

"Bad poems."

"Some almost rhymed."

Lily said, "I'm guessing dorm showers are about that clean."

Mom wrinkled her nose. "We'll buy you flip-flops and Lysol."

At this rate, Mom would have her packed for college before Lily had finished junior year. "I'll be right back," Lily promised. And then she'd decide when and how to tell Mom the truth. Lily kissed her mother's cheek, fetched her towel, and headed down the hall to the bathroom. She didn't know how Grandpa had lived with such an enormous lie. It wasn't a love-the-new-hair-color kind of lie; it was a lie to top all lies.

Lily showered quickly and then tiptoed over the gritty and crusty hall carpet back to the dorm room. Still not sure what to say to Mom, she opened the door anyway. "Mom, did Grandpa ever ..."

Mom wasn't there.

Lily froze, imagining goblins and trolls and faceless men

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with fire at their fingertips. She noticed the window was open, but she couldn't remember if it had been open before. Mom did like fresh air, possibly a dryad thing. Lily crossed to the window and looked down at the 50th Reunion tent below. She lacked X-ray vision to see through the tent roof. Spinning back toward the room, she scanned for a clue or a note or anything.

She spotted a piece of paper taped to the ceiling. Her shoulders relaxed, and she grinned. Dryad or human, Mom was still Mom. Craning her neck, Lily read,
Gone to forage breakfast.
Mom had drawn a sketch of a squirrel with a pile of nuts.

Lily dressed quickly and wished she'd thought of a way to warn Mom about Feeders. She shouldn't be wandering around campus by herself. Lily tried Mom's cell phone. Voice mail. Standing on a chair, she added to her mom's note:
Gone to find you. Call me!
She headed out the door.

Chances were that the Feeders weren't a danger anymore. Someone had returned Lily to her bed and Mr. Mayfair had called Mom, so the battle had to be over and the Feeders taken care of. But still, this was Mom. Lily wasn't about to take any risks with her.

Across the courtyard, Lily spotted a table stocked with bagels and croissants--if Mom had wanted breakfast, she could have foraged there, but the volunteers at the table didn't recognize Mom's description. Chomping on a bagel, Lily tried the registration desk.

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The same perfect-teeth elderly woman beamed at Lily as she approached. "Richard Carter's granddaughter, yes?" she asked.

"Um, yes," Lily said. She hadn't expected to be remembered. "I'm looking for my mother. She was wearing a Princeton shirt and has neon-bright orange hair. Did you see her leave the tent?"

"Oh, yes, she passed by here with Joseph Mayfair a few minutes ago," the woman said. "So lovely that your families stayed close after the tragedy."

"Um, yeah," Lily said. "Thanks."

The woman beamed with all her white teeth. "Happy to help!"

Lily hurried past her. She tried Mom's cell phone one more time and then Grandpa's. Mr. Mayfair should have fetched Lily as well as Mom. She should be there when Grandpa explained why he was bruised and burned. She should make sure Mom was told the truth. It was time.

On Prospect Avenue, Lily had to stop. She'd walked, not run, across campus, but she was panting anyway. She sucked in air, but it felt as if the oxygen had been leached out of the atmosphere. Her chest felt tight, and her muscles trembled.

She leaned against a maple tree to catch her breath. She felt the tree's bark against her arms, but she heard nothing. No static. No chimes. Just ordinary noises. She remembered how she'd felt with the trees at Forbes, as if the magic were

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pouring out of her. Maybe it had been. Maybe she should have taken a dose of medicine this morning instead of just a bagel.

Lily continued down Prospect Avenue, stumbling twice. She felt a headache pinch between her eyes as she entered Vineyard Club. She hoped Mom had remembered her medicine this morning.
No,
she corrected.
Not medicine. Magic.
She wondered how low Mom's magic levels were--she'd never caused the plants in the flower shop to dance. She had to be running on nearly empty every day.

One of the Old Boys lounging on a red leather couch rose as if to stop her, but a second one nodded. She recognized him from her first meeting with the Old Boys. "She's one of us," the man said. The first Old Boy sat down and picked up his newspaper. He continued to watch her, though, as the second man flipped open a cell phone and said, "Richard's granddaughter is here."

Almost immediately, Jake emerged from the stairwell to the taproom. "Jake, have you seen ...," she began. God, he looked terrible--or at least as terrible as a golden boy could look. His eyes were puffed and red, and his skin looked pale and waxy. "Are you okay?"

"First time helping with cleanup ...," he mumbled, and then he darted for a trash can in the corner of the room. Clutching the sides, he vomited into the can. He straightened after a moment and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. "Nice," he said, to either himself or the trash can. "Very manly."

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"Do you want some water or ...?" she asked.

He flashed a weak smile at her. "I'm fine. Fine." And then he scowled. "What were you thinking last night? You were supposed to stay hidden."

She flushed bright red. "I thought I could help." Instead, she'd barely helped herself. She should have ordered the shrubs to stretch faster or the trees to seal bark around her and the knights. If she'd been more specific, maybe she could have been more effective. As it was, she'd only succeeded in getting people hurt. "Is everyone ... all right? Is my grandfather here? Have you seen my mother?"

"Ask my grandfather," Jake said. "He's downstairs, running the clean--" His face contorted, and midsentence, he dove for the trash can again. She started to approach him, but he waved her away. "Don't watch."

She lingered another minute in case he needed help, and then she headed downstairs. She slowed as she got closer to the taproom. Odd noises drifted up the stairwell, groans and growls. Lily wondered what exactly had caused Jake to vomit. Maybe she should wait upstairs.

But Mom could be down there, too.

Fixing thoughts of Mom firmly in her mind, Lily reached the bottom of the stairs and halted. "Oh, my God," she breathed.

The taproom was crammed full of monsters. All of them were tied, blindfolded, and gagged. Most lay on the floor. A few were tied to chairs. To one side, three men in elbow-length gloves were stacking full trash bags. She vaguely

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recognized their faces from Forbes. Each of the men looked at her and then returned to his task.

"Mr. Mayfair?" she asked tentatively.

One of them pointed to the hidden room, now wide open. She stepped toward it and peered inside. Lying on the wood floor, with shackles from the chair stretched around his delicate legs, was a unicorn.

Between streaks of dirt and dried blood, his flank was mother-of-pearl. He was the kind of white that proved that white is composed of all colors. He shimmered beneath the grime like a pale rainbow about to disappear.

With a rasping breath, the unicorn lifted his head an inch off the floor and opened his eyes. They were so blue that they nearly glowed, but the lids were ringed with pus and blood. Shutting his eyes, he sagged his head back down on his silver hooves. The shackles clanged as they shifted.

Standing over him, Mr. Mayfair held steady a syringe that was plunged into the unicorn's hind leg. The drainer glugged and whirred. Silver liquid flowed through the tubes and into a bottle.

As the level in the bottle rose, the unicorn twitched. He flailed his head, cutting the air with his horn. His horn, which should have been luminescent gold, was black with blood.
Knights' blood,
Lily reminded herself.
Maybe even Grandpa's.

Mr. Mayfair consulted his watch, and then with one hand still holding the syringe steady, he deftly replaced the full bottle with an empty one. Lily could see every vein in the