by T Nisbet
Chp. 2
Cars fills with rowdy High School students were all trying to find parking spaces on the street in front of a huge, lit-up Victorian style Mansion. It was totally chaotic. The whole school had apparently been invited.
Bri’s house had some official name and was a local historical landmark being one of the oldest buildings in the city. The Klines were one of the richest families in America. Somewhere way back in time, a great, great, great grandfather had financed J. Paul Getty and his crazy oil scheme. Now they owned several banks back east. They were old school money, and the house was evidence of that fact. Three stories high, the colossal Victorian took up most of the block. It looked like it belonged in England, not in a suburb of Pasadena.
We drove slowly past the front and I could see excited teenage girls and boys standing in groups on the immense, manicured front lawn as other’s lined up to get inside. Everyone seemed to be laughing and having a great time, as uniformed servants saw to their refreshments. Toby found a spot a block away and somehow managed to fit his truck into it. I sighed and got out of the truck holding the door open for Carla.
As we walked towards the entrance to the lavish estate, I steeled myself for what was to come, thankful it wasn’t raining anymore.
People dream of being the center of attention, of having everyone know him or her, of fame. Our television shows rarely focus on the outsider or the groupies. They center on the star and everything revolves around him or her. It’s a part of our prevalent culture to be the VIP, to be popular, and everyone wants it. They think that if only they could be popular, that everything would be okay. What they don’t get is the awful anxiety it causes to have people act as if they know you, when you have no idea who they are. Everyone believes they are your friend and they all want your time. It makes you want to stay away from people altogether to avoid the embarrassment of not knowing their names.
I guess that’s one of the many reasons why Toby and I are such good friends. He knows how much I hate the fame part of being a successful quarterback. He’d been there during enough of my anxiety attacks to be aware of the fear, panic and claustrophobia that crowded places produced in me. Rather than letting me become a recluse and avoid crowded situations, he pushed me through my anxiety and fear by introducing people or saying their names aloud so I wouldn’t look like some self-absorbed ass that couldn’t be bothered with remembering who someone was. Even so, I braced myself to endure the crowd as we made our way to the front gate.
Carla and I shared a look as we approached the house, and she smiled winking.
“It’s not a funeral, Jake. We could always go to the photo club…”
“Nonsense woman, you speak nonsense!” huffed Toby, picking Carla up over his broad shoulder. “Dancing we will do!” he continued in his best Yoda voice, which I have to admit, is very good.
“Jake!” yelled a familiar female voice from across the lawn.
I turned as we walked towards the front door to see Ivy hurrying across the grass, red cup in hand. I stopped and waited.
Toby paused for a moment as well, saw Ivy, and disregarding Carla’s protests, told me he would meet me inside.
“Hey Ivy!” I shouted back.
Ivy was the weirdest girl in school. Everyone understood that she owned the title. Ivy didn’t march to any tune, for that matter, I didn’t know if she had any rhythm at all. Her long, blondish brown hair was always streaked with a different color and out of place. Over the years she’d cut it into so many bizarre styles I’d lost count. It was always a surprise, and I mean daily!
Ivy’s outfits were a mixture of clashing, overly baggy, bohemian styles that hid whatever figure she possessed. I didn’t know if she was plump or thin beneath the multiple layers of incompatible clothing, she was just Ivy. I didn’t look at her that way. Ivy’s ever-present smile made everyone around her grin, despite her braces with the black rubber bands.
I watched her hurrying over and forgot the building panic the crowded party made me feel. Being around her almost always relaxed me.
“Didn’t think I’d see you here,” she smiled. I stared for a second, realizing something was different about her. She noticed my look, and smiled again.
“Got them off today. What do you think?”
I didn’t know what to say. Her smile was absolutely beautiful! It changed her face completely.
“Wow!” was all I could muster. Ivy was gorgeous! Damn!
“Thanks Jake!” she smiled again, and threw her arms around me.
“You’re welcome Ivy,” I managed.
She leaned back, her arms still around my neck, and looked me in the eyes. “You okay? That big guy hit you so hard, I thought you’d be carried off the field on a stretcher.”
I shrugged, suddenly aware of her perfume, the unexpected, promising curves beneath the baggy clothing and how comfortable she felt in my arms.
“You are such a man!” she laughed, releasing me and grabbing my hand instead. “Gotta be tough!”
“Yeah right!” I groaned, as if her remark pained me, trying to hide my utter surprise at how transformed Ivy appeared without her braces.
“So you ready to run naked in the moonlight with me on the next full moon?” she teased. “That’s tomorrow if you were wondering.”
“As if!” I laughed, but suddenly I doubted that might not be such a bad idea. I was sure the thought made me blush, and I coughed to try and hide it.
I met Ivy in fourth grade when her parents relocated to Fairview from White Sands, New Mexico. Fairview is a suburb of Pasadena, which is a suburb of Los Angeles I guess you could say, since it’s all one big city now all the way out to Palm Springs on one side, and Santa Monica and the ocean on the other. Her dad worked at JPL, like my father did, only in a different division.
Her first day at school she promptly walked up to me, sat down next to me during lunch, and said we were friends. Just like that! I remember stammering an acceptance of some sort, to which she smiled and started talking with everyone else at the table like they were all old friends, too. It wasn’t more than a week later that she told me her mother was a Wicca and that her mother had seen the two of us becoming friends. I had asked how her mother could possibly know me since we’d never met, but Ivy had just smiled.
In fact, Ivy didn’t hide the fact that her mother was a Wicca from anyone, and that had promptly invited everyone to call her ‘witch girl’ and every other occult name imaginable, though the one that had stuck for several years was ‘Insane Ivy’.
The funny thing was that she didn’t mind the name calling at all. It didn’t seem to faze her in the slightest. I learned from her that being called a name is someone’s attempt to incite your passions against you, and that if you ignored their comments or name calling, the person got no satisfaction at all. Without accomplishing their goal, they quickly stopped calling you names and moved on to easier prey.
Because of Ivy’s amazing attitude, and the fact that she was nice to everyone, even the people who called her the names, she was accepted, quirks and all. After a couple of years, she was just plain old Ivy again.
She had been right, we had become friends, in fact, she was probably my best friend outside of Toby. They got along well together, and knew me better than anyone else did. The two of them watched over me, like parents at times, passing me off from one to the other whenever all three of us weren’t doing something together. Toby would ask me to go do something, then hand me off to Ivy when we were finished. I’ll admit it was kind of strange, and it had bothered me at first, but I’d gotten over it. When Toby started dating Carla, her and Ivy had become close friends as well. The four of us did quite a bit together.
I met Ivy’s mother a few months into seventh grade. She was an incredibly gorgeous woman who had the same seemingly senseless fashion intellect as Ivy. Mrs. Hlava had hugged me as soon as the door had opened, then sat me down and thanked me for everything I did for her daughter. I didn’t know that I’d done much, but I
endured it at the time, completely smitten by her.
“Got a moment before we go inside Jake?” Ivy asked, pulling me off the walkway, away from the crowds pressing to get inside, out onto the lawn.
“Sure,” I answered glad for the distraction. To be honest, my head hadn’t cleared from the realization that Ivy had become astonishingly attractive, and though she’d held my hands hundreds of times before, it never felt like it did at that moment.
She smiled back at me in that teasing, impish way that she had, and led me across the lawn, past several groups of people, towards some trees.
“You’re not going to believe this!” she said, pulling me into the darkness of the trees.
We took another fifty steps or so and walked into a clearing. Moonlight split the clouds and the cypress trees to sparkle off of the millions of rain droplets that clung tenaciously to the grass in the clearing. As my eyes became more accustomed to the light from the almost full moon, I saw a stone bench in the center of the grass.
“Isn’t it amazing!” breathed Ivy standing beside me.
I didn’t get it.
“Yeah Ivy, that stone bench is a really something!” I chuckled knowing I’d provoke her to a more complete explanation.
She stomped her foot in the wet grass and pointed.
“It’s a fairy ring!” she almost yelled, elbowing me in a recently bruise rib. “Look at the mushrooms!”
I tried not to flinch too much at the pain her elbow caused, and looked closer. Sure enough, we were standing just outside a circle of mushrooms, a huge circle. I’d seen small mushroom circles, and partial circles a few times, but nothing like this.
“Weird.”
The stone bench was at the very center of the ring.
“It’s not weird Jake, its beautiful, and really, really old,” breathed Ivy, obviously entranced by the clearing. “Fairy circles are temporary things, normally.”
“What do you mean?”
“Mushrooms are a fungi. They eat dead material and produce minerals the soil needs to become healthy again. The ring expands outward because the mushrooms spread from the center looking for more food.”
“Hmm,” I grunted. Ivy would know about this. “How can it be really, really old then? Wouldn’t it spread out into the trees and keep getting bigger and bigger until it found no more food to eat?”
“Not if it’s being used regularly silly.”
“Used by… fairies?” I asked rolling my eyes, trying to keep my tone neutral. I failed and got another jab in the rib.
“Of course!” she laughed.
“But don’t see Billy anywhere,” I joked through the pain. Billy was an openly gay boy at our high school. He was a flamer and the favorite shopping pal of most of the popular girls in school. He was really cool, and I never teased him about it, live and let live.
Ivy giggled and elbowed me again. This time I winced aloud and tried to cover it behind a cough.
“Oh Jake!” she said, putting her arm around me gently and leaning in closer. “I’m sorry, I forgot about how sore you must be.”
“No worries Ivy,” I said, trying to man up through the pain. The smell of her perfume scattered the throbbing after a minute or so.
“It’s a very old ring, maybe a hundred years or more,” she continued, still holding me close. “Someone has to be feeding it to maintain the ring. It’s absolutely beautiful!”
“Why would they be doing that?”
“Mother would know better than me, but I would say someone is taking a lot of trips to the other side.”
“Okay, now I’m confused Ivy, trips where?” I said, no longer trying to hide my disbelief.
Ivy let go of me gently and crouched down near the edge of the ring, setting down her plastic cup as she did.
“Another world that exists alongside our own, a world of myth. A place where the creatures of legend retreated to during the dawn of mankind, when man became too populous, and we discovered iron. A world almost the same as ours only filled with magic.”
It was all so crazy, and honestly, a bit frightening. I was getting the creeps, so I did the only thing I could think of to break the mood; I jumped into the circle.
Nothing. Relief flooded through me however silly it was. Ivy stood up quickly and shouted, holding out her hand. “Jake Jenner Gunn, get back here this instant!” she commanded, sounding kind of like my mother did when I was in trouble.
“Sorry Ivy,” I shrugged, stepping back carefully over the mushrooms and out of the circle.
Ivy grabbed my hand and pulled me away from the ring a few feet.
“It’s a very, very powerful place, Jake. You shouldn’t mess with it like that!” she huffed, angry with me.
“Come on Ivy, nothing happened,” I said, relieved to be away from the circle and a bit sorry that I had upset her. It wasn’t the tension breaker for her it had been for me.
“Something always happens with you Dear Heart! Getting pounded into the field by a big tight end is the least of it.” Ivy said, pulling me even further away from the ring.
“Defensive end Ivy, and it’s not always my fault.”
She’d called me ‘Dear Heart’ occasionally for years. I had always dismissed it as a random term of affection. Did I just not get it all these years, or was my newfound realization of her beauty making me read more into it? I shrugged it off, and followed her out of the trees and back to the party.
She squeezed my hand and gave me that coy smile.
“Looked kind of tight to me,” she giggled.