The first time I’d read it I was on the side of the merry-makers and against the stodgy burghers, but this time I noticed that my sympathies were shifting. I’d liked Quentin Foxtree, for example, who’d left Pommerie Town to travel in foreign parts, but now I felt sorry for his wife Tabitha and their four young children, whom he’d abandoned without a single thought. I admired how Maeve had managed to manipulate the reader, without fully understanding how she did it.
A few hours later Philip came back to look for us. “Come on, we’re having dinner,” he said. Maeve usually called the Italian restaurant in the nearest town and had them deliver take-out for all of us.
“I want to talk to Aunt Maeve,” I said.
“Oh, right. Just be quick.”
I hurried into the dining room. Dinner hadn’t come yet, and Maeve sat at the table, surrounded by piles of letters and empty envelopes.
All at once I couldn’t think what to say. She’d said she had no idea what I wanted to talk about, but how could she have forgotten, when it had happened only last month? It was as clear as an illustration in my mind—the trees, the lake, the music and dancing . . .
“Listen, I wanted to ask you—” I started.
She looked up. “What is it, dear? Is it the bees?”
“The—the bees?”
“There are so few left, I know. But I planted all that spiderwort in the garden, and some lavender, and I think they’re coming back.”
“No, nothing about bees,” I said. I hurried on. “Last month, well, I was walking through the wood, and I saw you in the lake.”
She stayed silent, and I forced myself to continue. “And I saw these other people too, these—these small people, like children. And then one of them, he got inside me somehow . . .”
“Ah.” She nodded, finally, and I let out a breath of relief. “The sprites, yes. Well, it’s unfortunate, what happened to you. But fortunate, too, maybe. Your life will never be the same, anyway.”
I liked “sprite”; it described them much better than the ugly word “creature.” “But what are they?” I asked.
“Well, I can tell you a few things. Show you some things, anyway. The best answers are always in books, don’t you find?”
She went to the living room and looked through the shelves. “Mmm,” she said, going down the rows. “Mmm. Yes, that one, and this one’s good too . . .”
She came back with an armful of books. “Here you go. Read these and we’ll talk about them next time.”
I looked at the titles. My frustration returned, soared to new heights. She had brought me Ivory Apples, I saw, and something about American Indian folktales, and a book on tricksters, and The Wind in the Willows. “How are these supposed to help me? And I already have your book.” I didn’t mention that I was reading it, or say anything to encourage her. “And Wind in the Willows? I mean, come on—it’s babyish, it’s a book for Beatriz, or even Rantha.”
“Have you read it, child?”
I hadn’t. I didn’t say anything, though.
“Just take them, see what you think.” She pulled out Ivory Apples and handed me the rest of the stack.
The doorbell rang, the food she had ordered. Philip opened the door and carried everything into the dining room, and Maeve stayed behind to pay the delivery-person. Philip had once complained after he saw her give one of them a fifty-percent tip, and she had pointed out that the nearest town was thirty miles away, and that she had to give them some reason to drive so far, after all.
We went in to eat. I couldn’t talk to Aunt Maeve with everyone else there, of course, so I said very little during the meal. Then we left, and as I said goodbye Maeve put the stack of books into my arms.
I felt the sprite caper within me as we headed toward the car.
Ms. Burden took some photographs of us one day in late October. Beatriz invited her over for dinner again, and I saw to my disgust that she was on her way to becoming a regular fixture.
It rained heavily over the next few weeks, and we didn’t see her until early November. When we met her again she’d brought us some presents, Photoshopped portraits she’d made of us. Semiramis was riding a lion, Beatriz was poised to dive from a tall cliff, Amaranth was dancing, and I was working at a computer.
She’d knocked some manners into my head by then, and I knew what would be the polite thing to say—that my twelfth birthday had been yesterday, and that this was the perfect birthday present. I didn’t say it, though. Although my sisters clearly loved theirs, I wasn’t sure how I felt about mine.
It wasn’t just that I had the most boring of the four, a picture of me sitting and staring off into space. It was that she’d put so much time and energy into them. The technology wasn’t very good back then, so she’d mostly pasted our heads on other people’s bodies, and the sizes and proportions were off. But the parts she could do, the shading and the backgrounds, had to have taken hours.
Why had she done it? Why did she spend so much time with us? She was beautiful, as I said, and could probably date anyone she wanted, so why didn’t she? I wondered again if she was trying to get close to Philip. She didn’t flirt with him, though, or I didn’t think she did, but a lot about adults still seemed mysterious to me.
It’s amazing how much kids have to learn in a short period of time. Not just what words mean, but recent history and pop culture and manners and how to do some things and when not to do other things . . . Earlier this year there was a big deal about Bill Clinton being impeached, and when I watched the news with Philip they kept talking about Watergate, as though of course everyone knew what Watergate was.
I don’t know if other people do this, but whenever I came across something I didn’t understand I’d save it up until I heard about it again. A few weeks after the news anchor had mentioned Watergate I saw an article about it in a newspaper Philip had left lying around. Which answered that question, but where was I supposed to go for more pressing problems?
All I had were the books Maeve had lent me. Most of them looked dry, scholarly. I’d finished my copy of Ivory Apples and so, despite what I’d told her, I started on The Wind in the Willows.
At first I didn’t understand why she’d given it to me. The stories of Toad and Mole and Rat seemed old-fashioned, and yes, a little babyish. Then I came to the chapter called “Piper at the Gates of Dawn,” and I knew.
The Piper was the sprite inside me, or an idealized version of him. Like my sprite, he played music, and like my sprite, he played music, and he made his surroundings dazzle with beauty.
He stirred within me at that thought, and I had the idea that he liked this view of himself. He liked the name Piper, too, and I thought that it might be what his fellows called him. But he and the Piper in the book had some differences as well, and I reminded him of the mean tricks he had played on me, the things he had tried to make me do. He seemed so drawn to the name, though, that finally I gave in.
He danced like a leaf on a twig. It was as close to a conversation as we’d had, and I felt myself softening toward him. In response I heard music, the song that had played in the grove.
Maeve was more responsive the next time we visited, even answering a few of my questions.
“Did you read those books I lent you?” she asked.
“Some of them,” I said.
“What did you think?”
“I don’t know. Well, they were about tricksters mostly, weren’t they?”
“That’s right.” She tilted her head to the side like a bird, waiting for more.
I didn’t know what she wanted. I wanted to keep her talking, though, and so I went on, saying whatever came into my mind, hoping I would hit on the right answer. “And there are stories about tricksters all over the world, right, Legba and Eshu and Loki and Susa-no-o, and all those American Indian stories about Raven and Coyote. And you put a trickster in your book, didn’t you—that coachman? But what does that have to do with—with what happened at the lake? Are those—those sprites I saw, are they
tricksters?”
“You can’t hold on to Trickster. If you think you have him, he’ll change shape, he’ll get you looking in one direction and escape in another.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“Trickster doesn’t mean anything. Trickster just is.”
“Look,” I said, feeling frustrated again. “I’m twelve years old, okay? It’s hard enough being this age—that’s what Philip says, and he’s right about that. And along with everything else I have this—this thing, this trickster, making me do things I don’t want to do, things I would never even think of by myself. I feel like some kind of freak. I am some kind of freak. And I can’t talk to anyone about it, no one except you. God knows what Philip would say. You have to help me. You have to tell me what to do.”
“Do? Why do you have to do anything? You just have to be. Like Trickster.”
“So I should—I should try to learn from him?”
She laughed. “Oh, no. No, I shouldn’t think so.” She seemed to take pity on me then, because she went on, “He isn’t there for you. Nothing he does is for you, to help you. But he’s given you a gift nonetheless. Hermes, you know—did you read about Hermes?”
I nodded.
“What did he do, do you remember?”
There had been an essay about him in one of the books Maeve had given me, but all I remembered from it was the intriguing word “psychopomp.” I decided to guess. “He was a trickster too, wasn’t he?”
“That’s right. He stole the sun god’s cattle. They’re connected to fire, most of them. They steal it, or they bring it down to our world, like Loki, or like the Great Hare in some Indian stories.”
I waited for her to go on, but she seemed to have finished. Philip chose that moment to come into the dining room. “There you are, Ivy,” he said. “Are you ready for dinner, Maeve?”
“Yes, I think so,” she said. “I’ll go call the restaurant.”
She started to leave. I wasn’t finished talking to her, though—I needed a lot more answers. “I don’t want any cattle!” I called out to her retreating back.
She turned to face me. “How is your writing coming?”
I looked at Philip, enraged. “Did you tell her?”
He shook his head, his expression puzzled. “No, dear, no one told me,” Maeve said.
But how could she have known? I hadn’t shown my writing to anyone except Philip, not even Beatriz.
CHAPTER 4
ON DECEMBER 31 we all stayed up to welcome 2000. Philip had explained that this was wasn’t the turn of the millennium, that the count would start next year, but we didn’t care about that; we were just excited that we didn’t have to go to bed, and that Philip let us have some champagne.
Beatriz had been worried about the Y2K bug, the theory that computers couldn’t handle the new date and would flip back to 1900, causing problems all over the world. She’d taken Philip’s computer downstairs, and after midnight she booted it up and then sat back in relief; everything seemed to be working fine.
A few days into the new year Beatriz talked Philip into framing the portraits Ms. Burden had given us, then hung them up in the front hallway, making them the first thing Ms. Burden would see when she stepped inside. The next time she came over for dinner, my sisters could barely contain their excitement.
Ms. Burden did not disappoint. “Look at that!” she said. “They look wonderful up there. But where’s yours, Ivy?”
“I lost it,” I said.
“Oh, what a shame. I’ll print you out another copy.”
“No, that’s all right.”
“It’s no problem.”
“I don’t—I don’t really want it.”
Philip turned toward me, his expression clearly telling me to stop being such a misery. For some reason, it made me want to behave even worse.
“I wonder if I could use your bathroom,” Ms. Burden said.
We only had one bathroom, ridiculous for the five of us, and we all tried to get up as early as possible to be the first one to use it. Philip gave her directions and she headed upstairs.
We drifted to the table. My sisters seemed listless, uncertain, as if they needed her presence to inspire them. Even I felt it at times, that spark of excitement she carried with her, the way she seemed to promise marvels.
Esperanza came out from the kitchen with a platter of goulash, and we realized that Ms. Burden had been gone for a while.
“She should be back by now,” Amaranth said.
“Maybe she got lost,” Philip said.
“Oh, come on—it isn’t that hard to find,” I said. The meat and spices from the goulash smelled wonderful, but we wouldn’t be able to start until Ms. Burden came back. “I’ll go find her.”
“No, don’t—it wasn’t that long,” Beatriz said, no doubt worrying that I’d antagonize her somehow.
I stood up. “I’m hungry now,” I said.
I went up the stairs before she could stop me. I walked as quietly as I could, though I don’t know what I was expecting. That she’d steal something, and I’d catch her red-handed, and we’d never have to see her again.
Even so, I was startled to see her in the room I shared with Beatriz, looking at my desk. “What the hell—” I said.
She turned around. She seemed as unruffled as ever, with no trace of guilt. “Oh, dear. I’m afraid I got lost.”
I went over to my desk and straightened out some of the piles, though she hadn’t touched anything. “For ten minutes?” I asked. “And what the hell are you doing in my room? Did you think this was the bathroom?”
“It’s such a big house.”
“Not that big.”
She spoke over me. “What interesting books you read.” She looked back at my desk, where I’d put the stack of books Maeve had given me. “Folklore and history and novels—oh, and Ivory Apples! Have you read it? It’s my favorite book in the world.”
I nodded.
“You’re so lucky, reading it for the first time. It changed my life. And these other books—you must be very intelligent. Where did you get all of them?”
I didn’t want to tell her about Maeve, even though the name would mean nothing to her. “A teacher gave them to me,” I said. “And you still haven’t answered my question. What are you doing in my room?”
“I want to get to know you better, that’s all. Is that so terrible?”
“Is that why you’re going through my stuff?”
“Look, Ivy—I think we got off on the wrong foot here. This is what people do when they like each other—they want to know more about the other person, to share things. You know what I think? I think you don’t believe anyone could like you. That’s why you’re so suspicious of me, why you think I have an ulterior motive.”
Was that true? I didn’t think it was. My friends liked me, or they had, before Piper had come and turned my life upside down. My sisters did too. Still, maybe she was right. Maybe, at her age, she knew things I didn’t.
“We should go to dinner,” I said.
“I still need to use the bathroom. I’ll be as quick as I can, I promise.”
“It’s down that way. At the end of the hall.”
She headed for the door. As I watched, my foot swept Beatriz’s thumb-piano into her path. She stumbled over it and swore, then looked at me sheepishly.
“Sorry. I’m terribly sorry. I hope I didn’t break it. No, it looks all right. What on earth is it?”
She picked it up and plinked a few keys. I stared at her, reminding her of her promise to hurry, and she left quickly.
Had Piper moved the thumb-piano or had I? Maybe it was both of us. We had both wanted to do it, anyway.
I waited in my room until she came back, just in case she wandered off somewhere else, and then we went downstairs to the dinner table.
“Sorry, I got lost there for a bit,” Ms. Burden said to Philip, as she sat down. “You must be very proud of Ivy—she’s reading at a level far beyond her age.”
&n
bsp; “Well, sure,” Philip said, trying not to look too proud of me in front of my sisters.
“And Ivory Apples,” she went on. “I love that book. Do you know there are rumors that Adela Madden is still alive?”
The name acted on me like a shock. I heard Philip’s voice in my head: What name do we never use?, and I stared at Amaranth and Semiramis, trying to warn them not to say anything. They were busy squabbling with each other, though, and I don’t think they’d even heard her.
I wondered again why we couldn’t talk about Adela Madden. Philip’s instructions had been so entwined with my earliest memories that at first I hadn’t thought about it; I’d just gone along with what he and Jane had wanted. Maeve liked her privacy, Philip had said, but it seemed like it was more than that. And did people really think she was dead?
I decided to ask Philip later. “It’s all so puzzling,” Ms. Burden said. “There’s even a website about Adela Madden, with all kinds of theories. And people do research—do you know no one’s heard from her for forty years, since about 1960? No newspaper articles or television appearances, and nothing official like a marriage certificate. So she’s probably dead, but no one’s ever found a death certificate either.”
Philip nodded, no expression on his face. I could see he felt uncomfortable, that he wanted to change the subject, but of course she didn’t know him as well as I did.
“And, you know, why would someone write such a great book, a masterpiece, and then just disappear?” she went on. “So she has to be dead, right? But then there are people on the website who swear they’ve seen her, even talked to her.”
I looked at my sisters again to make sure they said nothing, but Amaranth and Semiramis were still arguing, and I don’t think even Beatriz was paying attention. Philip was still saying nothing, probably hoping that the conversation would fizzle out on its own.
“I’m sorry,” Ms. Burden said. “It’s one of my passions, that book. I know I go on about it, I bore people to death sometimes. Just ignore me, please.”
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