Ivory Apples

by Lisa Goldstein

  “Look—the street’s back. The street and all the warehouses.”

  “You know that isn’t real.”

  “Yes, it is. It is! That’s the way it looked when I got here.”

  She came over and joined me at the window. “What month is it?” she asked.

  “What?” I realized I didn’t know. “It’s February. Or March, maybe.”

  “Isn’t that too sunny for February?”

  “I think she left,” I said, ignoring her. “She left, and all her spells stopped working. We have to move fast—she might come back at any moment. Get the others over here.”

  I squeezed through the window and dropped to the other side. Then I stood there, feeling the sun on my skin. It smelled like spring, like new leaves and unfolding flowers. How long had it been since I’d smelled anything but stale air?

  But I had to hurry. Beatriz had shepherded the others to the window, and now she handed them down to me and then jumped to the ground herself.

  “Come on!” I said.

  We ran for the car. It was where I’d left it, and my keys were still in my pocket. We got inside, and I sped away from the warehouse.

  I was still having trouble seeing. There was too much to look at, and for a while I could only pay attention to small things, especially as we got closer to the center of town. I heard cars honking and people laughing and planes flying overhead, saw traffic lights and houses painted in different colors and leafy trees swaying in the air. Everything seemed clothed in brightness after the dim light of the warehouse. I laughed out loud.

  When I finally looked at the road I saw that I was heading toward our old house instead of Aunt Maeve’s. Well, that was all right, I thought. We could stop there and pick up some things for my sisters.

  I turned around to look at them. “How are you doing?” I asked.

  They said nothing. They each had the same expression, blank and uncaring. Probably they hadn’t realized yet that we’d left the warehouse, that they were free.

  I followed the familiar turnings and pulled up in front of the house. We got out and walked up the path, and I unlocked the door. The Photoshopped portraits in the hall seemed to shine out from their places on the wall.

  I went farther in, going carefully. “Hello!” Beatriz called out.

  “Quiet,” I said. “There’s no one here.”

  “We’re home!” Beatriz said.

  A creaking sound came from inside the house, someone walking toward us. “Who—who is it?” I said.

  “Oh, come on, Ivy,” Beatriz said. “Don’t be so stupid. You know who it is.”

  She started laughing. Philip came toward us down the hallway. Then they were all laughing, Philip and Beatriz and Amaranth and Semiramis, overcome with hilarity.

  “She believed it!” Beatriz said. “She believed all of it!”

  Tears shimmered on my eyelids. How could Beatriz be so mean?

  “Like Kate would really let her go like that,” Amaranth said.

  “Fell right into the trap,” Philip said.

  “I mean, we knew she wasn’t very bright,” Beatriz said. “But I never thought she’d fall for this.”

  I was really crying now. “Come on, Beatriz, that’s not fair,” I said.

  “And now she’s crying,” she said.

  But it wasn’t her speaking. She wavered in the air, growing more and more transparent, and then disappeared. The house vanished, and I was back at the warehouse. No, not back—I’d never left it.

  Ms. Burden stood in front of me. “I’ll give you something to cry about,” she said. Then she too disappeared.

  CHAPTER 19

  A LOT OF THINGS I’d wondered about made sense now. I’d driven to our old house and not Maeve’s because Ms. Burden didn’t know where Maeve lived, and hadn’t been able to create an illusion of the place. And she wasn’t that familiar with the streets from here to our house, so she could only show me one distinct thing after another, a car, a tree. And of course the Photoshopped pictures had stood out from everything around me—she had created them, after all.

  The more I thought about it the dumber I felt. I’d missed so many clues. There had even been a halo of light around everything, like all of Ms. Burden’s illusions, but I’d thought it had come from the bright sun or the joy of freedom, some idiot thing like that.

  I’d been trying to get my sisters to open up, but now I stopped talking to them completely. How could I, after all the cruel things they’d said to me? It took me a stupidly long time to realize that they probably hadn’t even been there, that they’d been conjured up along with everything else.

  I asked them, of course, but they looked at me with dull incomprehension, as if they had no idea what I was talking about. Probably they didn’t, I thought. One day was the same as all the rest to them. I’d ask them when we got out of here, if we ever got out.

  I even felt desperate enough to try Piper again, but he refused me as he always had. More than ever I wished I had a spell like Ms. Burden’s, something to make him do what I wanted. To turn him inside-out, as Craig had said. Reverse him.

  Reverse him. Where had those words come from? Something I’d read recently, but what? I thought about them over and over, sure they were important somehow.

  Finally, one day, I remembered. They’d been in “The Woman and the Apple.” At the end, after the muses had been exiled by the moon, they “hope that someday she will reverse her decree and take them back.”

  “Reverse” was a strange word to use there, I remember thinking that when I’d read the story. The moon could cancel her decree, or revoke it. If she reversed it it would, well, it would be backwards, or upside-down.

  Semiramis cried out, and I heard footsteps booming out across the warehouse. I looked up quickly to see Ms. Burden coming toward us, calling the mist as she went. I moved in front of Semiramis, bracing myself for her next attack.

  But at the same time I knew that I was close to something, that I had to follow my thoughts to the end. I had to hurry, though. Ms. Burden was coming closer. The thing we’d seen before, the one with all those arms and legs, formed out of the mist and shuffled toward us, and I could feel Semiramis shaking.

  “Fell children the down and down,” I said, working it out as I spoke. “Bell the toll, tocsin the sound.”

  The mist around Ms. Burden thinned, then blew away like smoke. I turned quickly to the window. The illusion covering it had disappeared, and I ran over and peered out. A dull sky, as gray as oatmeal, looked down on a street filled with warehouses.

  It had worked. I’d reversed the spell, said it backwards.

  “Over here!” I called out to Beatriz. “Look! This time it’s real, I swear to you.”

  Beatriz didn’t move.

  “Come on! Her spell’s useless— I know how to fight it now. Hurry up—we have to go!”

  I went back to my sisters and tried to lift Semiramis. “No!” she said, pulling away from me. “No, I don’t want to go. There’s—there’s spiders!”

  I hesitated. I’d thought I’d escaped before, after all. I was losing my ability to tell truth from falsehood. What if Ms. Burden was creating all of this as well?

  She was almost upon us, so close I could hear her saying the words of the spell. I recited the counter-spell. What would happen now? Would we go on like this, spell and counter-spell, until one of us dropped with exhaustion?

  I gave up on Semiramis and started pulling Amaranth toward the window. Then, for the second time, I felt Piper leave me. He darted toward Ms. Burden, moving faster than I had ever seen him, and he knocked her down and sat on her. She was still speaking, and he pinched her lips together with his long greeny-brown fingers.

  I looked back at my sisters. Beatriz was staring at Piper. Whatever she saw must have convinced her, because she hurried over to help me. We wrestled Amaranth over the windowsill together, and I went back for Semiramis.

  “No!” she screamed, backing away from us. “No!”

  “There�
�s nothing out there, Ramis,” I said. “I made it all go away. Come on, Rantha’s waiting for you.”

  Semiramis went limp. She still didn’t trust us, I could tell, but she had given up, had decided to accept whatever happened next. We led her to the window and dropped her into Amaranth’s waiting arms. Beatriz climbed out after her.

  “It’s the green car!” I shouted after them. “It’s unlocked!”

  I turned back to Ms. Burden. She raised herself up to struggle with Piper, but he forced her back down with his wiry strength. Then he pulled and prodded her until she stood up, pinning her arms back and shoving her through the warehouse so that we stood face to face.

  There she was, this woman I’d searched for for so long. Who had torn my family apart, who had terrorized us, who had killed our father. Who’d lied and cheated her way into our lives.

  I had never felt anything like the rage that overtook me now. I trembled with the force of it. I wanted to beat her, kick her, knock her senseless. I couldn’t do any of that, though. I had to get back to Semiramis, to the rest of my family.

  I spat on her. I said, “If you ever come after any of us again, I promise I will kill you.”

  Piper jumped into me. Ms. Burden’s eyes widened. “You—you had—all this time—”

  “Shut up,” I said. “Remember what I told you.”

  I climbed out the window. I could hear Ms. Burden coming after me, ignoring everything I had said to her. I dropped to the ground and hurried to my car, taking the keys out of my pocket as I ran. I made sure that all my sisters had gotten inside the car, and leapt into the driver’s seat.

  I turned the key. The engine groaned a few times and then fell silent. How long had the car sat out on the street, while I was trapped inside the warehouse?

  I tried again. The noises from the engine went on for longer before finally trailing off. A whimper of fear came from the back seat, one of my sisters. I swore and slapped the steering wheel. I should wait, I knew, or I’d flood the engine.

  In the rearview mirror, I caught a glimpse of someone getting into the car behind us. I turned the key and slammed on the gas pedal. The engine caught and I pulled away.

  The other car started up. I glanced up at the rearview mirror and saw a gold Toyota, with a windshield so dark I couldn’t see who was driving.

  I knew who it was, though. I couldn’t let her follow me to Maeve’s house. A plan came to me, a very dangerous plan, but I couldn’t think of anything else.

  All right, I said to Piper. You can drive.

  Piper drove faster than I’d ever dared. He darted into side streets, spun in circles in intersections, ran red lights. Once he took a turn so fast, the car went up on two wheels. And all the while he was laughing and shouting triumphantly inside my head.

  He made so much noise that it took me a while to realize that Semiramis was crying in the back seat. I glanced away from the road to look at the others. Amaranth sat without moving, clutching the seatbelt where it crossed her chest. Beatriz, next to me, was hanging on to the armrest.

  “What are you doing?” Beatriz said. “You’re going to get us killed!”

  “We have to get away from her,” I said.

  Piper careened into the opposite lane to pass a slow-moving truck. “Get back!” Beatriz said.

  I did it! Piper shouted, moving back into our lane. I’m brave, yes I am! I stopped her! Let’s see her say that spell with my fingers clamping down on her mouth!

  Quiet, I said to him.

  You said I wasn’t brave, but I am, yes I am! You saw me, I made her stop talking!

  Yeah, when I didn’t need you anymore. I reversed her spell, you saw that. It isn’t brave if the danger’s already gone.

  He took no notice. I faced her down and fought her, knocked her to the floor! An epic battle, to be sung throughout the ages!

  The sign for the highway came up in front of us “Is she still there?” I asked Beatriz. “Ms. Burden. It’s a gold car with a dark windshield.”

  She turned around. “No.”

  I took one last look behind me. Then I took control of Piper and got on the onramp, slowing the car to the speed limit.

  Semiramis had stopped crying. “It’s all right,” I said to her. “You’re safe now.”

  She didn’t say anything. Then, after a long while, she stirred in the back seat and asked, “Is this real?”

  God, I thought. I felt so sad for her, thinking about what she’d endured. I was asking the same question myself, though. It seemed real, or more real than the last time I’d tried to escape. Semiramis had weighed a lot more when I’d lifted her up, for one thing. I was seeing everything whole instead of in parts, and the haze that had clung to Ms. Burden’s illusions was gone.

  But I couldn’t escape the thought that we were still doing her bidding. No doubt my sisters felt the same, only much stronger. Could they even come back from where they’d been, return to the real world? Semiramis was—I had to think a while—eleven years old now, Amaranth thirteen, Beatriz fifteen.

  “Oh, Ramis,” Beatriz said, turning toward her. “Of course it’s real.”

  “Is that really Ivy?”

  My eyes filled with tears, but I tried to keep my voice steady. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m Ivy.”

  “Where were you?” Semiramis asked. “Why didn’t you get us before this?”

  Guilt speared my heart, and I looked at her in the mirror. She was staring straight ahead, blinking like someone who had come out of a dark room into sunlight. Amaranth seemed to be asleep, and Beatriz was still holding on to the armrest.

  They weren’t ready to hear the whole story. I’d have to get them settled, give them some food, let them get used to being back in the real world.

  “I couldn’t find you,” I said. “I’ll tell you everything when we get to Maeve’s house.”

  Beatriz looked at me, interest showing on her face for the first time. “Maeve? Did you find her?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “She might have heard me,” I said. “Ms. Burden.”

  Amaranth and Semiramis were both asleep by the time we reached the house. Semiramis came awake with a gasp, and Amaranth opened her eyes and looked around sullenly, as if all places were alike to her, and there was nothing to be hoped for from any of them.

  Then they saw Maeve’s house. They each managed a tiny smile, and I felt my heart lift for the first time since I started looking for them.

  Maeve came to meet us as I opened the door. “Oh, my goodness!” she said, putting her hand to her chest. “Where on earth were you? I was so worried!”

  “I’ll tell you later,” I said. “I have to take care of my sisters first.” I turned to them and asked, “What do you want? Are you hungry?”

  “Sleep,” Semiramis said.

  They all felt the same way. Beatriz took the couch, my old bed, and the other two slept in Maeve’s bed. We were going to have to move things around, buy some new furniture—that was, if we were going to stay here.

  I felt tired as well, but I had to talk to Maeve. “How did you manage while I was gone?” I asked, as we sat at the dining table.

  “Not that well, really. I ran out of microwave dinners, and that other food you bought—well, I didn’t know how to put any of it together. You can’t go away like this and not tell me, Ivy.”

  She didn’t want to reveal how much she depended on me, I saw, and her weakness had made her angry. “I didn’t mean to,” I said. “She trapped me—Ms. Burden. Trapped me with my sisters. How long was I gone?”

  Maeve thought a while. “A week, I think.”

  A week? It had seemed much more than that, an eternity. I told her what had happened at the warehouse and how we’d gotten free, and at the end I asked her if my sisters could stay here for a while.

  “Well, of course you can. But you can’t just go away like this, you know. I was nearly out of my mind with worry.”

  “I won’t,” I said. “I p
romise.”

  My sisters all slept for a long time. Semiramis cried out once during a nightmare and I went and sat by her, talking to her softly and stroking her hair.

  Over the next few days they moved as if in a dream. They wandered through the house, looking at each other in amazement, reaching out to touch a book or a chair as if they thought it would disappear.

  At times I felt the same way. I’d be cleaning, or cooking dinner, and I’d stop and wonder if this would be the moment when it all dissolved around me, the walls and stove and lamps and chairs, and the true nature of my surroundings would be revealed. Or I’d brush against something, and I’d feel that dry, smooth tendril sliding along my arm, like something ancient made out of dust.

  Sometimes, though, I wondered if I could ever understand what my sisters had gone through. I’d only been there a week, after all. And they’d been trapped for how long—a month, a year?

  Finally, one evening at dinner, Semiramis felt strong enough to speak up. “Why didn’t you come get us?”

  “And where did you go when you left?” Beatriz asked.

  “All right,” I said. “Let me start at the beginning.”

  I told them about Piper first. I was prepared for disbelief, but even Beatriz seemed to accept everything without question. Well, they’d seen him at the warehouse, and they’d met those other muses, however corrupted those muses had become.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Beatriz asked. “I knew there was something different about you around then.”

  “Would you have believed me?” I asked.

  “Sure. You were acting pretty weird.”

  I expected her to go on, to say, “weirder than usual.” She didn’t, though. We still hadn’t found our way back to our old habits, our own rhythms.

  I explained why Ms. Burden had wanted to know where Maeve lived, how she’d been desperate for her own muse. Then I took a deep breath and told them why I’d had to run away.

  “No, you didn’t,” Amaranth said when I had finished. “You didn’t have to. You should have stayed with us. You knew what she was like.”

  “Well, but I thought you’d be okay, that she’d leave you alone. I was the one she was interested in, and I thought that if I left she’d just give up. And I was tired of always being the responsible one. I wanted to have some fun for a change.”