Ivory Apples
Page 11
I hadn’t had lunch, and by afternoon I was starving. The only thing to eat was some non-sugar candy in a bowl on the receptionist’s desk. I grabbed a handful whenever she left her station, but she caught me once and asked me when I thought my mother would pick me up.
I wanted to correct her about that “mother.” Piper grinned within me, reminding me that he could unleash all the words I needed to put her in her place. I tamped him down, hard; I needed her on my side.
I hadn’t felt him in a long time, I realized. Well, my life hadn’t been very much fun, and I knew he didn’t really understand sadness.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Do you want to call her again? Or someone else?”
I tried her again but she didn’t answer. A while later, two or three hours I think, it started to grow dark outside, and colder as well. I hadn’t brought a coat, and I hugged myself to keep warm.
Some of the lights down the hall clicked off. The receptionist came out from behind her station, pulling on her coat. “Well, we’re closing now,” she said. “I guess I can ask the doctor . . .”
More lights shut off. The dentist and some assistants came out of a back room and shrugged out of their white coats. I stood up, feeling light-headed, from all the candy I’d eaten and from my worry about what might happen.
Ms. Burden hurried inside. “Oh, my goodness, Ivy!” she said. “I’m so sorry—I just got your message. But I told you to take the bus, I know I did.” She turned to the receptionist and the dentist. “I did tell her, honestly! Oh, what you must think of me . . .”
“Well, you’re here now,” the receptionist said, looking relieved.
Ms. Burden was so convincing that I even wondered if she was right and I was supposed to have taken the bus—despite the fact that I had no money, and no idea which bus went to our house from here. But as things like this kept happening I realized that that was part of she wanted, to keep me confused and off-balance, to make me doubt things I knew were true.
Another time I noticed that I had outgrown most of my clothes. The last thing I wanted was to ask her for more favors, but finally, as my pants grew shorter and all my clothes became tighter, I had to say something. I’d expected we’d go shopping together, but instead she brought home bags of clothes and told me to try them on.
I started to unpack them. To my growing dismay I saw that she’d bought the kind of things she herself favored, long and loose, in pale colors like ivory or gray or light green. But the clothes that fit her so well were too tight on me, and the colors made me look worn out and drab.
And the shoes turned out to be a size too small. They pinched the first time I wore them, and within a week I’d developed blisters and then calluses. I started walking with my feet splayed out awkwardly, trying not to put weight on my toes. I asked her if we could take them back and get new ones, and she laughed lightly and said, “We can’t possibly return them—they were on sale.”
She “forgot” to pay our fees for the school cafeteria, and Beatriz and I went hungry for two days, until I remembered to pack some lunches for us. After the parent-teacher conference my history teacher would stammer in alarm whenever she called on me, and I was sure Ms. Burden had told her something about me, though I never found out what. This was horrible in a way Ms. Burden couldn’t have imagined, because I’d had a fierce schoolgirl crush on that teacher, and after a while she simply ignored me, no matter how many times I raised my hand.
Ms. Burden left the house for two days, then three days, and these times always seemed to coincide with Esperanza’s day off, and always when there was barely any food in the house, so we were forced to eat the bits and pieces we found in the kitchen. Esperanza saw what was happening and started making us extra meals, but there was nothing else she could do for us; I knew from something Philip had said that that she didn’t have the right papers to work here, and that she avoided anything having to do with the authorities.
Only once did I cry, and Ms. Burden’s response made me vow never to do it again. “And crying yet!” she said. “I’ll give you something to cry about.” That was one vow I managed to keep.
The worst stab to the heart was something I don’t think she even knew about. I hope she didn’t, anyway. Around spring break the next year ivoryorchard.com was full of talk about the Fourteenth Annual Adela Madden Conference, which would be held in Austin, Texas. Everyone seemed to be going, and I wanted nothing more in the world than to go too, to meet the people I had started to think of as my friends. I had about as much chance of traveling to Pommerie Town, though, so I tried not to think about it.
When we came down to breakfast on Friday, the first day of the conference, we saw that Ms. Burden was gone again. All that weekend, as she stayed away, I checked the website obsessively, reading about the panels and parties, the costumes and dinners and awards. No one ever mentioned her, but I was certain she was there. And when she came back Sunday night, carrying a bag stuffed with books and artwork related to Ivory Apples, I knew I’d been right. I never hated her more than at that moment.
CHAPTER 13
AS THE MONTHS PASSED Ms. Burden’s strategy seemed to change, and she turned her focus on Amaranth and Semiramis instead of me. Of course we both knew that they couldn’t tell her anything, that their punishments were really directed at me. If I wanted her to stop I’d have to answer her questions.
So she would tell Amaranth that she could have dessert if she finished her dinner, and then, when Amaranth had eaten everything on her plate, she’d swear that she had never offered any such thing. Or she would promise Semiramis that they could play Murder after school, and then deny she’d ever said it. She’d complain that they were too fat one day and too thin the next; that they read too much and should go out and play, and then that they should get serious about studying.
After about a month of this they began to act differently. Amaranth, who had always been so impatient, so eager to jump into everything, retreated into herself, turning quiet and sullen. Semiramis, who had always seemed younger and more innocent than her age, smiling at everything, now cried at every setback. And a new expression appeared on both their faces, a wary, suspicious look, as if they didn’t know who to trust—or worse, as if they thought they couldn’t trust anyone.
I’d been starting to think about going away, escaping Ms. Burden for good, but now I wondered if I could leave them behind. Beatriz was old enough to take care of herself, but Ms. Burden could still do a lot of damage to the other two. On the other hand, if I left there would be no one there who knew even as much as I did about Maeve, and maybe she would realize that and stop playing her games with my sisters.
The worst was when Semiramis went into Ms. Burden’s bedroom. She’d told us she could never be disturbed in there, but Semiramis had either forgotten or hadn’t paid attention. A few minutes later she ran out into the hallway, screaming.
Beatriz and I hurried out of our own room, and I grabbed Semiramis and held her. For a long time I couldn’t get any sense out of her; she was shaking against me and crying and saying something about monsters.
Finally she calmed down enough to talk. “She said—she said—she’s going to put me in with the monsters.”
“What monsters, Ramis?” I asked.
“The monsters in the closet.” She started to tremble again. “She said she’d lock me in there.”
That did it. I stamped down the hall and opened the door to Ms. Burden’s room.
She was staring at her computer screen. “Get out, Semiramis,” she said. “I told you I’d skin you alive if you bothered me again.” She turned around. “Oh, it’s you. What do you want?”
“Don’t you ever scare Semiramis like that again,” I said. “Or any of my sisters. The next time I’m going to the police, I mean it—”
“What on earth are you talking about, Ivy?”
“What did you tell her about monsters?”
“Monsters? Nothing. Why, what did she say to you?”
“Well, for one thing, you told her you’d skin her alive. I heard that one myself. And for another, she said you were going to put her in with the monsters.”
She smiled. “Well, of course I would never—”
Semiramis had come up behind me. She peered out around my shoulder and said, very softly, “You said you’d lock me in with them. Look, there’s a lock on the door.”
I went into the room, the first time I’d been there since Philip had died. A tide of clothes flowed from the closet and peaked into a wave at her bed, but otherwise very little had changed.
There was a padlock on the door of the closet, just as Semiramis had said, the kind that needed a code to unlock. It reminded me of the door we’d seen in her kitchen, of the sounds we’d heard, and I had to summon up the courage to ask her to open the door.
She sighed and pushed her chair away from the computer, then went to the closet and entered the code. “See?” she said, swinging the door open. “No monsters.”
Semiramis ran into the hallway. I hesitated, then forced myself to go farther in and peer into the closet. There were clothes piled in heaps on the floor here too, with only three or four dresses hung up. I listened for noises but could only hear a few hangers chiming softly together.
Then I saw something standing behind the dresses, a square, bulky shape, and for a moment my head filled with angry, lurching monsters. I pushed the dresses aside. It was a filing cabinet.
“What’s in the cabinet?” I asked. “And why do you need a lock for the closet?”
She brushed past me and opened one of the drawers. “It’s just official papers, yours and your sisters. Here’s your doctor’s appointments, and your birth certificate—or no, it’s Beatriz’s.”
“Why is the closet locked?” I asked again.
“I don’t know. The lock was here when I moved in—I assume Philip put it there.”
I didn’t remember ever seeing it before. “So how do you know the code?”
“Ivy, really, I don’t have time for this. Could you just do what I ask for once and not interrupt me when I’m working? And make your sisters stay out as well.”
I stared at her. “I don’t make my sisters do anything,” I said, and walked as slowly as I could out of the room.
I went back a few times when she was out and tried her computer, but it was password-protected and nothing I could think of would open it. The padlock stayed stubbornly closed as well. By this time I was sure that those things, the noise-making things, lurked behind the closet door, so I never stayed very long.
Then my birthday came around again, my fifteenth this time. At dinner Beatriz gave me The Art of Apples: Adela Madden and Pommerie Town, a handsome book of paintings from Ivory Apples. Unfortunately I already had it; Philip had given it to me a long time ago. She looked so pleased, though, and had taken so much trouble, that I couldn’t possibly tell her so.
“Wow,” I said. “Thank you so much.”
“What a thoughtful present, Beatriz,” Ms. Burden said. “I suppose you didn’t realize she already has it.”
“You—you do?” Beatriz asked.
“Of course not,” I said. “Anyway, how would she know? Is she sneaking into our room again?”
“Why are you lying, Ivy?” Ms. Burden said. “After all, it’s easy enough to prove I’m right.”
“I told you, I don’t.”
Ms. Burden got up and headed upstairs. “Stay out of our room!” I yelled after her.
She was taking the stairs two at a time now, and I ran after her. I’d lost this round, I knew, but I wanted to stop her from going through our things, and from making sarcastic comments about what she found.
I got to my room just as she took the book off the shelves. “Do you like lying for its own sake?” she asked. “Even when it’s obvious you’re wrong? Or have you just lost touch with reality?”
Beatriz came in, followed by Amaranth and Semiramis. Ms. Burden handed her the book. An envelope fell from between the pages. Ms. Burden caught it before it hit the floor and studied it.
“It’s addressed to Maeve Reynolds,” she said. “And look at this—Post Office Box 369. That’s Adela Madden’s box, if I’m not mistaken.”
It was the letter I’d written to Aunt Maeve, what seemed like so long ago. The proof that Ms. Burden had been searching for all this time. I tried to grab it but she ran out of the room and down the hallway.
I hurried after her. She reached the bathroom and locked herself inside.
“Well, well, Ivy,” she said from behind the door. “It seems you’ve been lying to me for quite some time.”
I hit the door with my fists. “Give it back! It’s mine!”
“‘Dear Aunt Maeve,’” she read. I stopped banging on the door to hear her. “‘It was good to talk to you . . .’ blah, blah, blah . . . ‘You were right not to trust the woman on the phone—she’s a horrible person.’ Oh, Ivy, really. Let’s see—blah, blah, blah . . . Ah, here we are. ‘She’s a big fan of Ivory Apples. I think she somehow knows you are Adela Madden though I don’t know how she found out. Please be careful’ . . . blah, blah, blah . . .”
Ms. Burden opened the bathroom door and stepped outside. My sisters had joined me in the hallway and we stood in a half-circle around her, waiting for whatever she was going to do next, dreading it.
“Well,” she said, folding the letter and hiding it somewhere among her loose clothes. “Why did you lie to me, Ivy?”
“Why do you lie to me?” I asked.
She reached out and slapped Semiramis in the face. Semiramis stood there a moment, too shocked to cry. Then she wailed and ran downstairs.
“I am so tired of this,” Ms. Burden said. “You’re going to start answering my questions. And every time you lie, every time you try to be clever, one of your sisters gets another slap. Maybe you don’t care about yourself, but I know you wouldn’t want to hurt them.”
I stood there, uncertain. Why couldn’t we tell her about Aunt Maeve, anyway? Maybe what she wanted was nothing very sinister, just to meet the author of Ivory Apples and discuss the book with her.
And if I told her, maybe she’d become the person we’d met in the park again, with her purse full of magic and her silly games. We’d have long talks about Ivory Apples, we’d go to Adela Madden Conferences together, we’d laugh at how stubborn I’d been. I was so tired of resisting, of playing her vicious games, of wearing shoes that pinched me at every step.
No, I had to keep the secret. Philip had made me promise.
Piper stirred, as if reminding me of his presence. Here was a way out, but one that might be worse than what I was escaping. I loosened his bindings carefully, one by one. I felt him stretch, felt him extend his body to fit mine. His shoulders touched my shoulders, his legs slipped into mine like putting on a pair of jeans.
He was offering me freedom. Freedom, finally, from Ms. Burden. I saw a picture of myself in his mind, running down the stairs, opening the door, slamming it behind me. I laughed with elation.
“I’m leaving,” I said, or he did.
The word echoed within me like bells. Leave, leaf, lift.
“Leaving?” Ms. Burden said. “Don’t be ridiculous—you just turned fifteen. Where would you go?”
“Oh, I’m far older than that. Older than the trees, younger than the moon.”
She laughed uncertainly. “What are you talking about?”
“Nothing you’d understand.”
Ms. Burden followed me to the stairway, shouting something about calling the police. I ran down the stairs and out the front door, just as Piper had shown me. The bells rang within me, became a song: leave, laugh, live. We danced to the melody, lightly, down the street and away.
CHAPTER 14
WE SAUNTERED THROUGH downtown Eugene. Downtown is
near the university, and it held countless memories of Philip: eating out, going to movies, visiting the library. But Piper had no patience with sadness or nostalgia. Instead, as we walked through the streets, passing families, shoppers, students, he looked closely around him, searching for something.
I say “we walked” because Piper had changed my stride along with everything else. I moved like a young boy now, or the way I imagined a young boy would move—swift, confident, staking out my place on the sidewalk. My palms faced forward, as if I was open to anything. People got out of the way as I went, and I wondered if they saw me as a boy as well.
Piper found what he was looking for and went to stand behind some people stopped at a light. He studied them for a moment, and then lightly lifted a hat off a policeman. He took another hat, this one pink and laced with gauze and bows, from a woman. Then he exchanged them, his touch so gentle that neither turned around.
The light changed and they crossed the street, still unaware of what had been done to them. I started to laugh. Shhh, Piper said within me, and I tried to be quiet, but my hilarity escaped in a strangled cough. Fortunately no one seemed to notice.
Piper went into restaurants and switched people’s drinks, he whispered something into a woman’s ear and then darted away. When I got hungry he stole some food off plates at a diner.
We wandered around like this until the stores began to close. The streets became darker, and a few scary-looking people took to the sidewalks. It had been a clear day, warm for November, but now a chill wind started, and I hadn’t brought a coat. For the first time I felt apprehensive.
Piper shook his head, and I saw he was searching for something again. We walked out of downtown and came to an abandoned lot. I’d seen some homeless people there once—I hadn’t remembered them but apparently Piper had.