She rolled her eyes. “And all of the lycans will be there which means…” She waited, but when Ivy said nothing, she huffed. “It means no one will be in Rufus’s house. No one except you.”
Ivy stared at the tip of Safiya’s finger hovering just before her nose hoping it wouldn’t burst into flames. “Me?”
“Looking for clues. I’d do it, but they actually invited me to the funeral. I hope they don’t expect me to howl.”
Ivy gulped and took a staggered step back. “You want me to break into a dead man’s house and look for what exactly?”
“That’s the problem: I don’t really know what, but anything that seems amiss or that tells us what might have happened that morning. The Vlceks have been standing guard—the place where a lycan dies is considered sacred and untouchable until the body is in the ground, so no one’s really been allowed inside. It was a pain just to get those damn chickens into the backyard. But Evan will get the keys the next morning.”
“Evan inherited Rufus’s house?”
“And the business.”
Ivy gave Safiya a long look as if to say they already had their answer.
But the witch just frowned. “So this will be our only chance to get in there before the place is really contaminated. I need you to look for anything out of the ordinary.”
“In a werewolf’s house? What, like lettuce?”
“That’d be a start.”
This was a tall order, even for the interim assistant to the interim president. Her duties should be simple things like helping to organize pool parties and ordering mulch, not breaking and entering and doing her best Jessica Fletcher impersonation.
“But first, you need to interview Tharman Beryleaxe.” Safiya crossed the office where she opened a cabinet and revealed three large trays stacked on their edges so they would fit inside. “And I need you to bring these back to Pauline. She didn’t show up at the end of the memorial to get them. Or any other time.”
She reached out to take them, but Safiya held on to the other end. “And you want me to question her too?” Ivy swallowed. “Did she put in an application for the presidency?”
“No, but I’m still suspicious. She’ll be home a little later, but usually takes a nap after work since she gets up so early. I’d suggest going over in the evening. Just,”—she scrunched up her nose—“don’t be too freaked out by the face.”
“What, Pauline?” Ivy remembered the woman, her round cheeks and long box braids all rather normal.
“I mean her daughter, Penny.”
Ivy leaned in as she watched Safiya mimic dragging her own nails across her cheek. She hesitated. “What happened?”
“Remember I mentioned Pauline hates Rufus? Well, it all started one full moon a couple years ago. Children don’t always understand danger, and when she was about four, Penny went missing right around sunset.”
Ivy’s insides started to shift uncomfortably. “Oh, no.”
“Everyone who could went out looking for her. She would have died if it weren’t for the Proctors, I’m sure, but they couldn’t heal what happened to her face. You’ve never seen a lycan’s claws, have you?”
Ivy shook her head.
“You don’t want to.”
Ivy took Pauline’s platters, pressing them up against her chest. “So, it was Rufus? Who attacked the little girl?”
“No, no,” said Safiya quickly, then she scratched her head. “Well, maybe? No one knows for sure, and Penny certainly couldn’t identify them, especially not when they’re changed, but Rufus was the pack leader, and it was up to him to find the guilty party and bring them to justice. But, see, Rufus refused to name anyone, said he couldn’t even if he wanted to, and insisted that the agreement in the community is that we don’t go out on a full moon, so they couldn’t be held responsible for things like that.”
Ivy made a sound in the back of her throat, though even she wasn’t sure what it meant.
Safiya looked down at her desk and pretended to straighten the already neat papers in her inbox. “I imagine things might have gone a little differently if Penny had died, or if lycanism had taken hold in her, but as it stood everyone just kind of let it go. Everyone except Pauline.”
“Yeah, I bet.”
Clearing her throat, Safiya looked up over the edge of her glasses. “So you’ll do it?”
“Sure,” Ivy said, hugging the trays tighter.
“All of it?”
Ivy hesitated, then swallowed. “All of it.”
Chapter 11
Eager to be alone and gather her thoughts, Ivy tossed her bag onto the sagging couch at 210 Ironwood Place and fell in next to it. Oakley was off somewhere trimming or weeding, and the big, empty house was blessedly quiet. Ivy took a long look around at the things on the shelves of the old place: vases, statuettes, books. Oakley explained that everything came with the house, Edna apparently had no family, and she’d left it all to the association. It was a good price, he’d said quickly, and moved on to telling her about a really fancy tree out behind the clubhouse that the new plant app he downloaded could not identify.
Ivy felt sad for family-less Edna for a few minutes, no one collecting her things in the year she had been gone. She reached back to the console table behind the couch and picked up an amethyst crystal cut into a star. Had there really been no one around who wanted a memento of her life? The star she held was heavy, it would be hard to just chuck out, lasting forever maybe, but no one had claimed it, and forever was a long time.
Except, forever also wasn’t that long, was it? She thought she was going to be with Travis forever. It seemed sort of like one of those inevitable things that’s dreamy at first then inescapable later, but then so did eventually finding a job that would utilize her schooling and so did Travis finally getting his big break.
Ivy slapped her forehead. “A fucking DJ,” she whispered into the room. “He never even made his own music!” She cradled the crystal, running a finger down one of the sharp points. “Edna, why am I so stupid?”
Across the room there was a little bang, and she looked up to see the tail end of movement on the bookcase there. One book had fallen face down beside the others, a small, older tome with a hard cover, and when she flipped it back up, read the title: Women Are from The Transcendental Plane, and Men Are from The Nether.
Ivy sat the crystal against it to hold it up and sighed. “Very funny, Edna.”
Later that evening, Ivy drove to the far side of Avalon Estates where the blocks of condos sat along Ashbury Lane. They each had their own short driveway, so she stopped at the head of the road, pulling the platters out from the backseat and strolling along the winding sidewalk, wondering exactly what she was going to say. Hi, thanks so much for all these cookies for the dead guy, but I was wondering, did you kill him by chance? What’s that? Oh, right, yes, I am a total stranger in your secret community, thanks for noticing.
She glanced out at the dense trees set back off the road. The forested area encircled all of Avalon Estates, but it looked to end here, the edge tapering off just before the long, flat expanse where the condos began, the lake behind them and the tall wall of the association curving at the very back. As the sun hung lower in the sky, there was only blackness within the trees, and they cast long shadows across the grass, reaching to the edge of the sidewalk. Ivy shivered, wondering what lycans might hunt inside. The underbrush a few yards off twitched, and even though she thought it might have just been a flash of brown feathers disappearing in the foliage, she sped up.
The condos were newer, modern, but smaller than the grand houses throughout the community. They were attached in blocks of four, each dwelling painted an alternating shade of grey or blue. Numbers were listed over the garages at ground level, little porches jutting out over them. Ivy walked up the shared flight of stairs to numbers 439 and 440.
Pauline’s door was to the left on the end of the block, construction paper pumpkins and bats taped all over it. Halloween was looming not far off, but t
he Carter residence was ready early. Ivy knocked and waited, a brief image of the cookie from the memorial wafting through her mind. When the door opened, she had to swallow before she could say hello, but her mouth only hung open when she saw no one inside.
Ivy glanced down, a single eye blinking back at her from the sliver in the doorway. “Hello!” she said brightly. “Is your mom home?”
The figure nodded, the pupil large and deep brown, still staring. Ivy bit the inside of her mouth, nervous at what she might reveal.
“Do you think I could talk to her, please?”
“Those are mommy’s.” The voice was high and quiet.
“Oh, I know.” She rustled the trays. “I’m here to bring them back.”
“Okay!” The girl swung the door open wide, and the porch light shined in to reveal her face. At the tip of her temple, a gash ran between her eyes, over her nose, and across her cheek. Beside it were two more, running right over her eye, the pupil wholly black beneath them. Ivy held her gaze steady and continued to smile at her, and the little girl called back over her shoulder, “Mommy, Ivy is here!”
As Penny thundered away from the door, Ivy silently thanked Safiya for making the little girl’s face sound much worse, barely noticing she hadn’t given the girl her name.
“Who?” Pauline came around the corner, a dish and a cloth in her hands, her brows knit.
“I’m just bringing back your trays.”
“Wow, almost nobody ever does that.” She looked her over with a squint. “What was your name again? Ivy? You’re a sylvan, aren’t you?”
“Uh, yeah.” She nodded and glanced down at her feet. “Not a very good one though.”
Pauline laughed. “It’s nice to finally have another one in the neighborhood. Since Edna passed, Penny’s been the only one.” Ivy screwed up her face; Safiya hadn’t mentioned Penny was sylvan, let alone Pauline. “Well,” Pauline went on, taking the trays, “Penny is half sylvan, that is. Here, come on inside.”
The entryway had a pin board on the wall, half of which was covered in grocery lists and reminders stuck on a calendar with fast, illegible scribbles, and the other half was littered with drawings in bright crayon. “Penny is quite the artist. I think that’s where her gift is headed. I can barely get her to stop drawing to eat dinner.”
“Let me show you!” Penny appeared at her side suddenly, and her small hand wrapped around Ivy’s, tugging her further into the house. She was taken to a short desk and chair set up in the corner of the main living space. An assortment of art supplies was tucked into a bookcase beside it and more drawings were taped up on the wall. Ivy watched the top of the girl’s head, a mass of dark curls that bounced when she walked, as she flipped up the desk’s top and pulled out a folder labeled in bright red crayon: Top Sekrit. “These are a cereal.” She was looking at Ivy earnestly.
“She means a series,” Pauline said from across the room.
“They aren’t all done.” Penny’s little eyebrows were arched, serious. “They need more shading.”
“Oh, I won’t judge them too harshly then.” Ivy drew her lips down with a somber tone.
Penny gave her an approving nod and pulled out the top few papers, holding them out, turned over dramatically so that she could only see the little girl’s signature and the date written in big, block letters on the back.
With as much care as possible, Ivy allowed the girl to flip the papers over and sit them in her hands. They were, in truth, remarkable for a child who was at most seven. She was getting proportions right and blending colors with certainly more skill than Ivy had. “Whoa,” she found herself saying quietly. “These are beautiful.”
Penny beamed up at her, her smile bright and wide. With her broad but small nose, heavily lashed eyes, and high, round cheeks, the scarring was a tiny detail on her otherwise adorable face. She was eager to show her the pages at a quick pace, pointing out what she was trying to capture.
Ivy, however, actually recognized some of what the young girl had drawn. They were the houses in the community, the lake out back, the park behind the clubhouse. She could even pick out, specifically, Rufus’s house with its symmetrical, tall windows and whitewashed facade, though the figure in the front window didn’t seem to be Rufus, but a woman with little black dots all around her. Then she found one of the clubhouse with a bright field of flowers surrounding it and someone who looked a lot like Oakley standing proud and surrounded by butterflies. There was even one of Oakley’s house and her own car sitting in his driveway. “Oh, this is where I live!” she said before she could flip away to another picture.
“I know!” Penny was still grinning, then she gasped. “Have you seen Mrs. E’s ghost?”
Ivy glanced at Pauline from the corner of her eye, who had been standing, arms crossed, watching the two with a smile. She burst into laughter and came over to them, taking the folder of pictures from Ivy and handing them back to her daughter. “Penny, Mrs. E is living in the Great Tree now, not haunting this nice lady’s kitchen.” She smirked at Ivy. “Though if you do find the kettle acting up…” Pauline patted Penny’s curls then retrieved a plate from the kitchen table. “Makroudh?”
Ivy took the toothpick Pauline was offering her. On its end was a diamond-shaped bit of pastry with a dark center, the outside shimmering with a sticky coating. It went into her mouth at once, flaking apart, chewy, crumbly, and deliciously sweet. She’d never tasted anything quite like it, and tried to express that, but her mouth was stuck together.
Pauline seemed to read her expression, placing the plate on the coffee table. “They’re an old family recipe. Filled with dates. These are baked, and I’m not sure if I like them better than the fried batch. I’m trying to perfect the recipe before they go into the shop.”
“I think you got it.” Ivy managed to swallow the last bite, her mouth coated with a pleasant, spiced aftertaste.
Pauline’s face crinkled with a smile.
“Seriously, that’s…amazing. The cookies too.” She pointed at the stack of trays over by the sink. “And the croissants. I genuinely don’t know how I stopped myself from eating the whole spread.”
“Well,”—Pauline gestured to the couch, and they both sat—“Baking is just about as close as you can get to magic, but when you combine the two? Then your shop can really take off.”
“It was really thoughtful of you to bring so much down to the clubhouse.” Ivy eyed the rest of the makroudh, then pulled her gaze away, trying to focus. “Everyone appreciated it. Rufus too, I bet.”
Pauline sat up a bit straighter. “It was the least I could do.” Her eyes were cast down as she wiped invisible crumbs from her lap, her mouth held tightly in a frown.
Penny’s markers filled up the quiet in the room, squeaking against the page she was working on from her art corner. Well, that was that subject covered.
“So, you run a bakery?”
“Yes! In the square over in Ogden Bluffs. No one knows, of course, that we’re,”—she held her hands up next to her head and flapped them with a chuckle—“I’ve got two full-time employees now, from the community, of course.”
“Miss. Celia!” Penny erupted from across the room. “She’s so silly. She does voices!”
“Celia?” Ivy ran the name over in her mind. Oakley had mentioned her, she thought, and she cringed a little remembering the bra she’d found in the couch cushions.
“Sirens.” Pauline smiled, and Ivy filed the word away for later. “They’re great for business, amazing with illusions, not that we need them in the shop, but they’re just so good with Penny too. We open really early, and Penny comes with me during the day.”
“Mommy says next year I can go to regular school with the other kids!”
Pauline took a deep breath. “I said maybe.” When Penny went back to her drawing, Pauline leaned in a little closer to Ivy and whispered, “I keep her out because, you know. I just don’t want the other children to hurt her. It’s hard enough integrating a charmed kid into public sch
ool.”
Ivy glanced back at Penny, happily humming to herself and swinging her legs as she worked on her art.
“So, what’s your gift?” Pauline cocked her head. “Is it working with plants like your brother?”
“Oh, uh?” She wasn’t entirely sure what that meant, but she was pretty sure it had something to do with being sylvan which she definitely wasn’t.
“Oakley grows plants!” Penny announced, saving her. “He’s like me!”
“I told you to call him Mr. Sylvan, please.”
“He said his name is Oakley.”
Pauline bristled, but Ivy laughed, holding up her hand. “Trust me, he’s not really worthy.”
“We saw him out working while on our walks to the enclave. He fielded all of Penny’s questions, even the ones about the pixies.” She chuckled. “When the society comes around they’ll be so pleased to have the two of you here. With Penny’s father gone and Edna’s passing, Penny was the only sylvan left, and she’s only half at that and underage.” Pauline put a hand up to her mouth, trying and failing to hide a yawn.
“Oh, I should go.” Ivy stood, a trickle of guilt running down her spine, glad for the escape from discussing the heritage she didn’t have.
Pauline rubbed at her eyes as she stood. “It was nice to get to meet you properly. Here, please.” She offered Ivy one more makroudh, and she didn’t have to be convinced to take it.
Penny ran up as they stood at the door and thrust a paper up toward Ivy. “This is for you.”
The picture was done in the deep blues and purples of a night sky with a moon glowing in the corner, and it would have been quite pleasant if not for the scene. There was a small silhouette of a person standing defiantly in the foreground, though it was tiny in comparison to what was peering down at it. Over the figure towered the long, slender body of a serpent, too big to be anything of this world. The human form was clad in jeans and a sweater matching Ivy’s current clothing with her same light complexion and brown ponytail. “Is this…is this me?” She didn’t want to be too presumptuous, but the roiling in her gut made it fairly obvious.
The Association Page 8