Ivy cocked a brow. Garlic pasta, like in the trashcan at his house.
“We were just here, in fact.” Evan pulled out his phone then turned the screen to her. “The night before.”
The two were seated together in the photo, his uncle’s arm slung up over his shoulders. They were smiling, but not in the way Evan did when he said something on the verge of suggestive or even in the way Rufus did in his memorial photo. They were just happy.
Ivy smiled, genuine, but then it faltered. She recognized Rufus’s shirt, dark red with embroidery on the shoulder, as the one he’d been wearing when they’d found his body. “Can you send me that?”
Evan looked caught off guard for the first time since she’d met him. “This picture?”
“Yeah, uh, Safiya and I are just putting together a little slide show of Rufus. It’s for something…in the distant future,” she lied. “It’s just such a nice photo.”
“Well, of course. What’s your number?”
“You can just send it to the president’s email.” She grinned. “Now, what are you getting?”
He held her gaze for a long moment, then relented and went over the menu again.
They spoke in quiet tones for a while about Rufus, and Evan’s showboaty shtick tempered which would have been nice if Ivy weren’t so unsettled to consider Evan could have truly cared for Rufus and still killed him. They were together the night before Rufus died—or rather the actual night of his death if that photo was any indication. If Rufus loved that dish so much, why would he have tossed out the leftovers? Had they tasted off? Perhaps poisoned? Her heart raced a little faster as she gazed down at her own meal.
“—and that’s why Alpha Grooming took off. He just grabbed people by the balls and didn’t let go until he got what he wanted.”
“By the balls, huh?” Ivy found herself chuckling in spite of herself. She didn’t want to like Evan, and it was a solid fact that she didn’t, but he was charming even when he was talking about testicles, metaphorical or otherwise.
“Exactly.” He mimicked doing so with a garlic knot. “But everyone still loved him.”
“Did they?” That didn’t seem exactly accurate according to the other board members.
Evan was confident, though. “Even Allyson, one of the siren girls, came by in tears the other day, totally distraught. Had picked up his dry cleaning the same morning, but she’d cried all over it. Shame.”
Ivy remembered the name from Rufus’s appointment book. “He employed her, right? She was, like, the maid?”
“Took a few hours to console her,” he said nodding with something like pity in his eyes. “But that’s just the affect Rufus had on others. He brought people together. Sometimes he tried too hard.”
Ivy’s ears pricked up. “How so?”
Evan smiled to himself. “Oh, you know. He entertained strange ideas sometimes. But he had to do that, for the association and for Alpha Grooming. He was the heart of his company.”
“Your company now, though. Right?”
“Well.” He darted his eyes away. He was so rarely sheepish that she leaned in as he spoke. “It’s the board’s company, but he did leave all of his shares to me.”
“So becoming Avalon’s president on top of things would be just like following in his footsteps.”
“It is. And I want to continue his legacy, Ivy.” He pointed at her with his fork, and Ivy’s eyes bulged at the word she’d used to lie to Calla and Victoria at the pool. “He made our community what it is today: a safe haven for all of us. A place where my kind and your kind and even you know can live in harmony. That was unthinkable just fifty years ago, but look at us now, sitting together at a human restaurant, having a wonderful time.”
Ivy sat back and wiped her napkin over her mouth. She didn’t know much about the history of hexed folk save for the necessary things Safiya had told her between chores and interviews, but the information hadn’t really lent itself to the outcome she saw around her in Avalon Estates. It was probably impressive. “I’ve never lived in a place like Avalon before, but there are other communities like it, right?”
He folded his hands before him and nodded. “Yes, but many of them are segregated and for the unhexed only. The Sylvan Society has been working to end that, as you know, and the netherlight fragment is a tempting offer to many.” She didn’t know, and she wasn’t sure she’d heard him right when he said “unhexed,” but she nodded as if she understood anyway. “Rufus was at the forefront of all of that years ago. He spent a lifetime trying to clear the lycan name.”
“And you want to keep everyone…together?” It seemed like a good thing. Noble even.
“Just as Rufus intended.”
Ivy took a bite of pasta and swallowed. “It’s not perfect though, is it?”
“Well, what is?”
“I just mean, there are certain…dangers.”
Evan worked at a single noodle, twirling it around his fork with precision. “We’re not like everybody else, no.” She wasn’t sure if he meant lycans or the community as a whole. “We take precautions, but there will always be casualties.”
Penny’s face flashed across her mind. “Alastair Proctor said something interesting the other day.”
“Did he?” Evan glanced up from under his brow, his eyes a little darker, the candlelight falling into the hollows of his cheeks.
Ivy took her time chewing, watching him. He didn’t move, waiting for her to speak, and a part of her regretted bringing it up at all. “He mentioned a…a potion maybe? Said it helped lycans or something.”
“Oh, I bet he did.” He dropped his fork and sucked his teeth. “Alastair Proctor is a—” He stopped himself, pressing the back of his fist against his mouth and looking off into the restaurant. The anger flickering in his eyes made Ivy wonder why Rufus was the one in the ground and not the warlock. “Mr. Proctor,” he began again, the flash of madness gone, “has very strong beliefs. But they’re old fashioned, and I’m sorry to say but they’re very bigoted. I’m sure he means well, and gods know his family has been through a lot, but he’s only looking out for himself and people like him.”
“Witches?”
Evan nodded. “Charmed folk. He comes from a long line of burnings and hangings, and the Proctor name was sullied long before him, but it’s not an excuse. We’ve been through a lot too. They made us what we are, and then hate us for it. They think it’s so easy,” he went on, running his fingers down the stem of his wine glass. “Lock yourselves in, it’s just one night a month. As if that hasn’t been the tactic for hundreds of years, and as if it didn’t lead to madness. Lunacy.”
Ivy didn’t know what to say. She knew too little to offer an opinion, and even if she were better informed, she wasn’t sure there would be much she could add anyway.
But then his voice broke the awkward silence, calmer. “Ivy, I understand your…hesitation. There would be more of your kind if not for us, but you should know that we’ve evolved, and we’re changing still. And it’s hardly our fault sylvan blood is so tasty.” He snorted, shaking his head. “I only joke, of course.”
Ivy sputtered out a meager little laugh. Well, he would be disappointed. “Of course.”
“Tell me, Ivy, if you could change something about yourself that others hated but you didn’t, would you?”
Ivy was not hexed, and she knew that was what he meant, but she wasn’t a stranger to the concept. “I…” She looked up at him. “I might.” It was the truth, and she expected him to be angry about it, but Evan simply stared back at her, knitting his brows. “But I don’t know what it means to be, well, Safiya called it a curse.”
“Saf said that?” Ivy watched a softness come over his face, then he picked up his fork again. “Well, it used to be, but now I like to see it as a blessing.” His self-satisfied smirk took over. “And I won’t let Rufus’s legacy be undone by a man on a vengeful mission.”
The clanking of forks against plates and the gentle murmur of other patrons buzzed around I
vy’s head. She took a drink of water, firmly having turned down any wine and glad for it: this was enough of a downer. She needed to turn this around, somehow, and she took a breath. “So are there any changes you’d like to make if you become president?”
“Yeah.” He looked wistfully out across the restaurant then back to her. “I think I’d like to put in a golf course.”
Ivy took her leftovers in a container that reminded her of the bottom of Rufus’s trashcan, and they sat on her lap on the ride back to Avalon Estates. Greg peered into Evan’s car at the gate before letting them in, giving Ivy a long look from behind his sunglasses. “Good to see you again, Ms. Sylvan,” he said with all the sincerity of a conservative politician, and she awkwardly waved back, not liking the way this looked from the outside. Knock-off Corey Hart nodded back, smirking at Evan.
Back at 210, Evan turned off the car in her driveway, and she panicked. “Thank you so much, Mr. Vlcek. I’m going to write up your blurb right away while it’s still fresh.” She reached for the door handle.
“After all that you can’t just call me Evan?” He threw his arm over the back of her seat and was flashing her that grin of his, the one that said he wasn’t trustworthy, but you know you’re going to trust him anyway, so just get on with it.
“Thank you, Evan.” Ivy repeated slowly, staring back and counting the seconds for appropriateness, then popping open the door. “Okay, good night!”
She was headed up the drive before Evan had a chance to reply. He called after her a confused “good night” through the window, and she gave him a little wave over her shoulder as she beat it to the door, swinging it open and slamming it behind her.
Ivy put a hand to her forehead, let out a loud sigh, threw off her heels so they clattered into the wall, and stomped down the entry hall to the kitchen, muttering to herself about situations and how she got into them. There, Oakley was standing with two glasses in his hands, brows raised, looking at her like she’d just committed a crime.
“Oh.” She froze, glancing across to the living room. There was a girl on the couch who she vaguely recognized from the pool. “Sorry.” She dumped her leftovers into the garbage and hurried upstairs. Her phone went off as soon as she closed the door to her room. It was Safiya, texting to see if she’d gotten home.
Just now.
Alone?
Ivy almost threw the phone across the room. Of course!
Chapter 17
The tasks seemed daunting, but Safiya assured her there would be help from the board members. Not from Safiya directly though, who’d been a little short with Ivy that morning when she handed off a list of items they needed to complete before the Sylvan Society came to visit. Safiya didn’t want to hear about the dinner with Evan then, insisting she was too busy with her own chore list and hurried off into town.
As Ivy waited for the help to arrive, she tried to imagine Victoria Jiang or Alastair Proctor mending fences or cleaning up shoreline, but hopes of seeing either one fall in the lake were dashed when the actual help arrived. The young woman she’d unceremoniously met the night before on her couch and another showed up first, introducing themselves as Celia and Marci. They were followed by three clean-shaven dwarves, the Forgebristle triplets, though Ivy couldn’t tell the three apart, and they moved about so quickly she wasn’t sure anyone else could either. There was also a moody boy in a baseball hat and sunglasses who was just suddenly there behind her, nameless and looming. Each vouched for a member of the board, coming to help in their stead. And then just when Ivy was sure Alastair had forgotten to send his ambassador, Hunter Proctor showed up.
“We’ve got a handful of things to get done before the Sylvan Society comes around at the end of the month,” she told them, most of the younger faces looking right through her, already bored. “So we might want to break up the chores amongst ourselves.” No one else responded but Hunter who told her it was a great idea.
First on the list had been taking care of the pixie problem in the gardens, but she’d already asked Oakley to spray for pests and decided she’d check on his progress later. She hadn’t seen anything like a pixie—something very small and annoying, according to Safiya—and figured Oakley wouldn’t notice the difference between them and wasps. Next was a bigger chore. “So, the lake apparently needs some cleaning up.”
“Oh, we’ve got that,” Marci said in a flowery, high voice.
“Yeah, Bob will help us,” Oakley’s date, Celia, added with a wink.
“Sure, okay, great,” Ivy continued, “And in the basement—”
“That’s mine,” the baseball-capped boy piped up.
Ivy blinked at him. “Okay. In the basement is where you’ll find the paint to touch up the welcome sign. It needs to be pressure washed first though.”
He sighed as if the weight of the world had just been plunked down onto his shoulders. “Fine, I’ll do it as long as I can do it alone.”
“Suit yourself.” She made a note on the list. “And then there’s the fence. It needs a perimeter check—mark down all the places that should be repaired first, and then we’ll dole out that work.”
“Oh!” One of the dwarves’ hands shot up. “Can we take the golf cart?”
“I don’t see why not; it’s a really long—” The three ran off for the tiny garage that housed the cart before she could even finish, and that triggered the others to disperse as well. Ivy called after everyone. “Just check back in this afternoon!”
Hunter took a step toward her. “So that just leaves us. What’s left?”
Ivy took him in for a moment, dressed to do some work in an old t-shirt that fit just right. She grinned and glanced back at the last task on the page, reading it out, “Cock hunt.”
“Huh?”
Ivy gasped at herself. Indeed, the fourth bullet point read the words she’d just said, a smiley face with a tongue sticking out in Safiya’s blocky script beside it. “Oh, Saf thinks she’s real funny.” Ivy showed Hunter the paper. “We’ve got to round up Rufus’s missing cockatrice, apparently.”
Hunter laughed. “Well, that should be fun.”
Fun would be a word for it, certainly. Safiya had been rounding up chickens, but the cockatrice—that leathery-winged creature she’d been chasing days ago—had completely evaded her by scurrying off into the forest. He was a troublemaker, she told Ivy, and a lot of the community members had an aversion to him.
Ivy stood on the edge of the wood and peered in. Even with the morning sun shining in a cloudless, bright blue sky, the pathway in was dark and shadowy. Thick trees grew in a blanket overhead, blotting out the light even though the floor was covered in a soft bed of leaves as well.
“Are you coming?” Hunter called back, and she shook herself free from the spot she’d been stuck to.
Just as she went to enter, she saw the golf cart whiz by in the distance, one of the dwarves hanging off the back of it and whooping. “I’m going to regret that, aren’t I?”
Things sounded different in the woods, all the rest of the world left behind as if it had never existed. The street, cars, voices of children, slamming doors, televisions, all of it was gone and replaced with the din of insects and rustle of wind in the trees. Ivy glanced over at Hunter to make sure he was still beside her even though she heard his heavy footfalls on the leaves.
“Maybe I should already know this,” Ivy asked, keeping her voice low as if the trees themselves might hear and take advantage, “But how far back does it go?”
“The forest? Oh, acres and acres.” He looked off ahead of them, and Ivy followed his gaze. There was no sign of the wall that encircled Avalon Estates though she knew it was out there somewhere. “You can wander around forever and never find the end. It’s kind of enchanted like that.”
“No, it’s not.” She laughed, but he didn’t return her smile. “Wait, it is?”
“Of course it is.” Hunter’s brow wrinkled. “It’s because of that netherlight orb. It draws creatures to it, and they need a place to live,
so,”—he gestured to the forest—“This place exists.”
“Oh, yeah, duh,” she said, eyeing the totally normal looking trees. “Typical orb stuff.”
“You seem a little uneasy. I thought this would be your sort of thing.”
“Me? No, I’m fine.” Something skittered behind Ivy and she jumped, turning around to find nothing there. Carefully, she looked back at Hunter who’d crossed his arms, peering down his nose at her. “Really. I’m great. Trees, bushes, nature—totally my jam.” That’s what Safiya had implied about sylvans anyway.
“Right.” Hunter looked her over then continued on, taking them farther off the dirt path that ran at the woods’ edge. She’d been there before, skirting it to get to Rufus’s house during the funeral, and that had been uncomfortable enough even before she knew about the creatures.
“Just for curiosity’s sake, though,” she said wistfully, following him. “How are we going to get back? I mean, I’m not familiar with this exact enchanted forest, but if you can wander around forever and there aren’t any signs…”
Hunter maneuvered over a log that had fallen. “Oh, you sort of just let the forest lead you out. Usually you end up where you’re meant to be.”
Ivy pulled herself up onto the log then jumped down the other side. “Oh, so can we just ask the forest to help us find the cockatrice then?”
“That’s a great idea.” Hunter rounded on her, excited like a puppy waiting for a treat. “Can you do that?”
A bird tittered out in the trees and a breeze blew down around them, cold and threatening fall despite the sunshine. “Yes,” she lied. “Just, um…” Ivy took a few steps to the left, then back to the right. She licked her finger and held it up in the air, closing her eyes. When she opened them again, Hunter was still staring at her, eager. “Okay, so,”—she cleared her throat—“Oh, great forest of enchanted wood, I beseech you. Pray tell what lies within your…branches, and reveal to us the location of the…foul cockatrice.”
The Association Page 12