Ivory Apples

by Lisa Goldstein

  She stopped before she gave away Aunt Maeve’s name. At least she knew enough not to say it in front of a stranger. I didn’t have time for relief, though, because she was still talking.

  “Anyway, you think you’re so clever. I found out some things even you don’t know.”

  “Yeah, like what?”

  “Like where Kate is.”

  “Ms. Burden? Why would you do that? After what she did to you, and Beatriz and Ramis? Did you talk to her?”

  “Yeah.”

  “God, Rantha, you know you can’t trust her.” I tried to speak evenly, without letting her see how worried I was. Though she couldn’t have told Ms. Burden where we lived or we’d have gotten a visit, with her trail of spooks following along behind her. “What did you tell her?”

  “It’s not what I told her. It’s what she told me.”

  “Okay, what did she tell you?”

  “Things. Things about Ivory Apples.”

  Judith, standing next to me, looked startled. “What about it?” I asked. “I didn’t think you were even interested.”

  “Of course I am. I only read it like three or four times. And we talk about it all the time, and Kate even said I had some good ideas. But you wouldn’t know—you never paid any attention to me.”

  “Well, I’m sorry. You never said you’d read the book, or that you wanted to talk about it. Why don’t you come home and we can discuss it?”

  “I’m not going anywhere. You can’t make me.”

  “Sure I can. You’re too young to be working, for one thing. All I have to do is call the police and tell them where you are, and they’ll come get you. And they’ll bust Mr. Morris, too, and make him pay a fine, or even close down the theater. Are you sure you want to do that? I remember him as a pretty decent guy.”

  She said something, and ribbons of mist began to twine up around us. God, she’d learned Ms. Burden’s spell, the one that brought that horrible whiteness. But it was those enslaved creatures who created the mist, so at least one of them had to be nearby, following Amaranth’s orders.

  I said the counter-spell and the mist disappeared, then gusted up again. “Rantha,” I said. “Just come home, please. We can do—do whatever you want together. I’ll help you as much as I can, I promise you.”

  I’d been talking for too long, though. The whiteness became thicker. Shapes swirled up within it, an old cat we’d had once; Philip and Jane talking in the kitchen, too far away for me to hear them.

  I pushed against it with the counter-spell. The fog turned to gauze, to cobwebs, and then frayed apart into air.

  This was ridiculous; we could be doing this for hours. Then a dreadful possibility occurred to me, that Ms. Burden was somewhere nearby, with her creatures.

  “We should go,” I said to Judith.

  She stood still, looking stunned for the first time since I’d met her. I grabbed her hand and pulled her away.

  We reached the car and got inside. “I—what was that?” she asked.

  “I’ll tell you later. Come on, let’s go.”

  “Why?”

  “Someone could be following us.”

  Judith started the car and we headed away from the theater. She drove steadily; I was glad to see it.

  She left downtown, then got on the freeway and continued for a while, crossing the Willamette River. “There’s no one there,” she said, looking in her rearview mirror. She took an exit and pulled over. “No one’s following us. What just happened?”

  “It was . . . Okay, you’re not going to believe this.”

  “I already don’t believe it.”

  “Well, what Amaranth said—it was a kind of spell.”

  “And then what you said?”

  “That was just the spell backwards. To stop it.”

  “Just.”

  “Look, I know it sounds impossible—”

  “No, that’s the thing. It doesn’t. I mean, it would, if I hadn’t seen it for myself, but I can’t think of any other explanation. You and Amaranth could have planned it all together, I guess, set up some kind of, I don’t know, a fog machine or something, but I don’t see why you would. How—where did she learn something like that? Where did you, for that matter?”

  “Well, I read it in a book. She must have gotten it from Ms. Burden.”

  She sat back. “You know, you keep telling me Ms. Burden is behind this or that, but you never say why, just that she’s obsessed with your family. But it has to be more than that.”

  “Well, she thinks we know something about—about some other spell,” I said.

  “And do you?”

  “Sort of.”

  “What kind of spell?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Okay,” she said. “Amaranth mentioned Ivory Apples , so I’m guessing it has something to do with that. And you said you live with your great-aunt, who could be the right age for Adela Madden, and there were always rumors that Madden was still alive. How am I doing?”

  I shook my head miserably. It was just my luck to have found an investigator who was good at her job.

  “I can’t help you with this unless I know what’s going on,” she said.

  Once again, I wanted to tell her everything. But I thought about Maeve, who was still coming to terms with the loss of Willa, and about everyone who had kept the family secret for so long, Philip and Jane and my grandmother Lydia. I thought about Ms. Burden, who had been liked by nearly everyone, at least at first, and how it was impossible to know who to trust. Maybe I’d never believe anyone ever again—or maybe it was only women who would raise my suspicions. Just my luck, I thought again.

  I felt for Piper to see what he thought, but he shrugged and shook his head, leaving it up to me. “I’m sorry,” I said finally. “It isn’t my story to tell.”

  “All right,” she said. She started the car again and pulled out into traffic.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Back to my office. I can’t do anything more for you.”

  “Oh.” For the first time I realized that if she stopped working for me I’d never see her again. “Do I still owe you anything? Or is there some paperwork or something I have to sign?”

  “Nope. We’re done here.” She let a few moments go by, and then said, “Look. Everything you told me, everything I learned on this case is confidential. Even if your aunt is Adela Madden—well, it’s not just that I won’t tell anyone who she is, it’s that I can’t. It would be unprofessional.”

  I felt my scruples melt away. Anyway, she pretty much knew everything anyway. “All right. Yeah, she is. She’s Adela Madden.”

  “Wow. Ivory Apples was my favorite book when I was a kid. I read it about once a year—I practically had it memorized. I still read it every so often.”

  “Yeah, me too.”

  “What was that like, growing up with her as your aunt?”

  “It didn’t seem like anything special. I mean, she was just around, you know? But then, after I read her book a few times, I realized how amazing she is.”

  “Why did she stop writing, do you know?”

  I had a few guesses, but nothing I could tell Judith. “No, I don’t. She’s very good at not answering questions.”

  She looked at me and smiled. “So are you,” she said.

  We talked about Ivory Apples until we got to her office. I pictured her as a child, solemn and practical even then, yet still lost like so many others in Pommerie Town.

  We reached her office building and parked in the lot behind it. “Well,” she said. “It was fun working with you. Give me a call if you need anything.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  I put out my hand for her to shake. She hesitated a moment and then took it, and I got out of the car.

  I thought about her nearly all the way home, wondering what I could have done differently. Then, as I took the exit to Woodbine, my worries about Amaranth returned. What had Kate told her about Ivory Apples?

  I could hire Judith to look in
to it. I let myself dwell on the possibilities for a while, then shook my head. I was pretty sure that I’d never see her again.

  CHAPTER 23

  EVEN THOUGH I'D found Amaranth and had seen that she was safe, I still had nightmares about her. One night, about four months after she’d run away, I woke up suddenly, grasping the blankets, thinking I’d heard a noise.

  The full moon shone through all the house’s windows, so bright I could almost read the titles on the bookshelves. I heard the sound again, coming from the back of the house. I got up and went toward it.

  I looked into the study first. The moon’s light picked out the one empty bed, Amaranth’s. Beatriz and Semiramis were in shadow, but I could tell they were asleep. The door to Maeve’s room was closed as usual, and I decided not to bother her, to check on her only as a last resort.

  Something moved in the kitchen, heading toward the back door. I hurried toward it. The figure turned at the sound of my footsteps, and Amaranth looked back at me.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  She glanced toward the door, no doubt wondering if she could outrun me. I closed the distance between us and glared down at her. I was still taller than her, I was pleased to see.

  “Maeve gave me this,” she said.

  Now I noticed something in her arms, a round shape covered with a towel she’d taken from the bathroom. “What is it?” I asked.

  “Never mind. Maeve said I could have it.”

  “It’s an ivory apple, isn’t it?” I said, remembering the offerings Amaranth had left on the lakeshore.

  “So what?”

  “Let me see.”

  She unfolded the cloth. An apple lay there, the one she’d brought to the grove, showing a town hall meeting in Pommerie Town.

  “Are you sure that’s the one she gave you?” I asked.

  “Of course I’m sure. I asked for it, and she gave it to me.”

  “And you’re going to do what with it? Hand it over to Ms. Burden? That’s the last thing Maeve would want.”

  “No, of course not. It’s mine.”

  I was completely awake now, and remembering everything Ms. Burden had done. “Why on earth are you even talking to her? She’s a horrible person—you of all people should know that.”

  “She taught me some things. And you never tell me anything.”

  “She’s going to want something in exchange. Like an ivory apple, maybe.”

  Amaranth said nothing. I took advantage of her silence to ask more questions. “What did you talk about? Those ideas you said you were so impressed with?”

  “Why should I tell you? You never tell me anything.”

  Now I noticed how thin she was, how sallow her complexion looked. She seemed worse than last time, maybe even sick. Just as I thought that, she coughed, the kind of loose, rattling cough that comes at the end of a long illness.

  “Can I get you something to eat?” I asked.

  She hesitated, then edged toward the back door. The small window was broken again; she’d probably gone through it to reach the lock. “No, thanks,” she said.

  “How about giving me your address? A phone number?”

  “I gotta go.”

  “She’s using you, you know. She has some plan, she’s going to take advantage of you somehow.”

  “No, you’re wrong. We’re on the same side. We both want the same thing.” She opened the door, and I heard her run around to the front of the house.

  How had she gotten here? Had Ms. Burden dropped her off? No, even she wouldn’t tell Ms. Burden where we lived. She had to have gotten someone to drive her. I ran through the house to look out the front windows, but all I could see were two red taillights, growing smaller in the distance.

  It rained hard at the beginning of December, the sky turning the same gray as the sidewalks, and I worried about Amaranth more than ever. Still, she’d seemed so determined to stay away that I had no expectations of her ever returning. So when she showed up on the doorstep, her thin parka and knapsack drenched with rain, she took me completely by surprise.

  I wanted to laugh at her, to say “I told you so,” or ask why she hadn’t broken a window this time, but I knew she’d leave again if I did that. And another part of me wanted to hug her, to hold her there, to keep her with us for good. The best thing, I decided, was not to make a big deal out of it.

  “Hi,” I said. “Come on in.”

  She followed me through the living room, looking around at the seems like visiting a foreign country, when you have to relearn ordinary objects one by one.

  “Are you going to stay for a while?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” she said. “Sure.”

  “Great. Do you want your old room back?”

  She nodded and we went down the hallway. “Ramis is in there,” I said. “She stays in her room a lot now.”

  She shrugged. Semiramis looked up as we came inside, and then returned to her drawing.

  A small smile appeared on Amaranth’s face, a brief muscle tug, there and gone. “Hi, Ramis,” she said.

  “Hi,” Semiramis said. “Where were you?”

  “Lots of places,” Amaranth said, sitting on the edge of her bed.

  “Like where?”

  It was time to pick up Beatriz at school. I said goodbye and set off, hoping I wasn’t making a mistake by leaving the two of them together. They’d been deadly rivals when Amaranth had left.

  Beatriz and I could barely hear each other on the drive back, over the pounding of the rain and the swish of the windshield wipers at their highest speed. Still, I managed to tell Beatriz that Amaranth had come back, at least for now. When we got home, we found her and Semiramis sitting across from each other on their beds, their heads together, talking in low voices.

  “Hi, Rantha,” Beatriz said.

  They looked up, startled. “Hi,” Amaranth said. Semiramis giggled. They moved apart and stared at Beatriz, saying nothing.

  “Okay, then,” Beatriz said. “I know where I’m not wanted.”

  “At least they’re not fighting,” I said.

  A few days later I asked Amaranth, “Where’s that carved apple?”

  “I, um, I haven’t unpacked it,” she said.

  I went through her knapsack while she was out somewhere with Semiramis. I know I probably shouldn’t have, but no one had given me the How to Parent manual and I had to make it up as I went along. I didn’t find the apple anywhere, though.

  She and Semiramis continued to spend long hours in their room with the door closed, speaking too softly for me to hear them—though once in a while a high musical giggle would come from behind the door, Semiramis laughing. But with everyone else, Amaranth acted the same as she always had, still angry, still surly and resentful. I hoped she wasn’t telling tales of Ms. Burden to Semiramis, getting her interested in the grove all over again.

  Beatriz made some friends at school, and she started having dinner with them and even sleeping over. She had begun to put her experiences in the warehouse behind her, and was even revising some of her rational view of the world, making room for everything she had seen there. I was pleased to see it, but at the same time I envied her for having such a normal life.

  Finally, one evening, I couldn’t take Amaranth’s stubborn silence any longer. Beatriz was eating at a friend’s house and dinner was muted, with Amaranth saying nothing and the loud rain nearly drowning out any conversation.

  Amaranth finished dinner and started to get up. “Did you unpack yet?” I asked. “What happened to that apple?”

  She glanced at Maeve, and at that moment I knew that she’d lied, that Maeve hadn’t given her the apple after all. “I gave it to Ms. Burden, if you have to know,” she said.

  “You’re kidding me. After everything she’s done, to you, and—and our family . . . What does she want with it? Does it have some kind of power or something? What if she comes after us again, and I can’t stop her this time?”

  “It doesn’t have any power, as far as I
know,” Maeve said.

  “Well, but she shouldn’t have—” I said.

  “Yeah, well, Kate thinks it does,” Amaranth said. “It does have power. She knows things, she knows a lot more than you do.”

  “Yeah, you keep saying that,” I said. “Like what?”

  She was silent a moment. Then she said in a rush, “Like, well, you can lend Piper to other people.”

  I sat back. The rain had stopped, I realized, and her words had sounded loud in the small room. “What?” I asked.

  “Kate told me so. She said that if your—your muse trusts you, you can ask him to leave, to visit someone else. Just for a while, she said.”

  “She said that, did she? How does she know?”

  “She read it somewhere. So you can, you know, tell Piper to visit me every so often.”

  “I can’t tell Piper anything.”

  “You know what I mean. Ask him. Ask him to leave you, just for a few minutes.”

  I asked him. I felt him grin, as though he thought it might be fun. I hated the idea, though. For one thing, Ms. Burden had suggested it. For another, Piper was mine, just as I was his. He didn’t belong to Amaranth, or anyone else.

  “Why should I?” I asked.

  “Why? Because everyone in this goddamn family has a muse, everyone except me. It isn’t fair.” She glared around the table at the three of us, speaking faster and faster. “So you’re all geniuses, everyone loves you. That letter from that poetry magazine, about how brilliant you are—”

  “Wait—you saw that?” I asked.

  “Of course I saw it. That’s why you left it out, wasn’t it? I’m just surprised you didn’t frame it. And everyone ignores me, or feels sorry for me. I’m like the ugly duckling.”

  She’d gotten the fairy tale wrong, but it would have been the height of cruelty to tell her so. All I could do was let her talk.

  “Just once, just one time, I’d like to get noticed like that,” she said. “To be the one everyone thinks is so special. And you didn’t even do anything to earn it—it all comes so easy for you. It’s not fair.”

  “I don’t think—” I said.