Ivory Apples

by Lisa Goldstein

  She didn’t reply. I sensed she was there, though, through all the noise and confusion. No, it was more that—she was the noise and confusion. That was the only way we could know her, though somewhere within all that chaos it was peaceful, the sacred stillness of a god.

  “Your—Your Grace.” How did you address a muse? “Would it be possible for you to leave the apple? We need you here.”

  I felt her answer rather than heard it. “Ah, someone with the divine spark within her. No, someone who had the divine spark but lost it.”

  “Yes, my muse left me—”

  “No.” The word seemed to negate everything, to close off all possible connection between us. But it had only felt that way because she was so forceful, because her every utterance seemed a part of creation, seemed to become real. “You lost your spirit. Your task is still to steal fire from the gods, from us. And yet you renounced that task, and instead you spend your days in drudgery. We had marked you out for something different.”

  But I had to do that drudgery, I thought. Who else would wash our clothes and cook us dinner and remind Beatriz to do her homework . . . But even as I was thinking how to defend myself I understood what she meant. I had grown dull, complacent. I hadn’t written poetry, not one line. I’d stopped seeing all the wonderful and terrible secrets within the world.

  I’d thought that this was because Piper had left me; certainly when he’d gone I’d fallen back on surfaces and stale routines. But he’d already shown me how to write, to go beyond, to look at a tree and see the heartwood within. And I’d had Maeve as an example—she’d continued working on Ivory Apples, even after Willa had left.

  “Your Majesty, please—you have to help us,” I said. “Ms. Burden is burning down one of your groves.”

  She looked around her, seeing everything at a glance. “It is already done,” she said.

  As she spoke I felt her invade me. Everything broke apart into a storm of sights and sounds that drove me to my hands and knees. Amid the turmoil I managed to hang on to one thought, that she had lost the ability to deal with us, if she had ever had it.

  I struggled to stand up, to regain my balance. One tree had already burned through, and the fire was spreading to its neighbors. But the fire was turning paler as I watched, going from red and gold to the gray of a newspaper, and finally it went out.

  Everyone sank to their knees in front of me. I shook my head, flustered. Then I realized that they weren’t seeing me but Talia.

  Together Talia and I turned to Ms. Burden. “Release my children,” we said.

  Children? I thought. But they were her children, not literally but as the descendants of the first muses, the original Nine.

  Ms. Burden shrank from us, huddling into herself. The apple fell from her hand and rolled to the shore.

  “Release them,” we said again.

  A mist formed, the horrible whiteness my sisters and I had been trapped within at the warehouse. It frayed outward, became rags and shreds of fog. Now we could see the sprites within it, moving restlessly, as if unsure what was happening.

  The fog dispersed. Sprites stood and walked where it had been, looking around themselves with wide eyes.

  “Claudio!” Talia said with my voice.

  One of the sprites turned toward us. He was taller than the others, and with a deeper light in his eyes. More than that, though, I sensed a great age or wisdom within him, a force nearly as strong as Talia’s.

  “Talia,” he said. “My old love, my enchanter.”

  I stood still and waited for Claudio to come to us, to embrace Talia, fearing that they would crush me between them. But he stayed where he was, looking at us with shining eyes.

  Talia turned back to Ms. Burden. “You enslaved my children,” we said. “And you tried to burn down my grove.”

  “I—I wanted a muse,” Ms. Burden said.

  “It is not for you to bind my children. They should be free to go where their fancy takes them. Tell me, what shall your punishment be?”

  Ms. Burden looked up at us from her place on the ground but said nothing. Even she, I thought, could not trick her way out of this. But she surprised me once again.

  “It’s true—I did a terrible thing,” she said. “And I’m sorry, and I’ll go away and I’ll never bother you or your children again. But in a way—well, in a way I did you a favor. I brought you out of Pommerie Town, and because of that you’re free now, and you’re together with Claudio again—”

  “Quiet.” The word was not loud, but it had the strength of a command, and Ms. Burden fell silent. “I want just one thing from you. Tell me what punishment I should give you.”

  “I—I don’t know. Please—I only did what I thought was best.”

  I sensed Talia’s anger at this. “You interfered in the work of the gods,” she said. “And for that I sentence you to death.”

  “No!”

  Much to my surprise, I found myself echoing Ms. Burden. I remembered what she had told me about her life, the wretched things her mother had done to her, the refuge she had found in Pommerie Town. Of course she would have a confused idea of what a writer did, how to go about creating a world of her own. The wonder was that she hadn’t done worse.

  Talia seemed to follow my thoughts. “And what fate would you give her?” she asked me.

  I was silent for a while, thinking. “I would have you reveal yourself to her.”

  She seemed amused. “My judgment was not as cruel as that.”

  “I want her to see you plainly. To see what she was meddling with.”

  Talia left me and walked out along the shore. At first she looked the same as the others. But as I watched she seemed to kindle, to flash with grace and fire and light. She appeared to weigh nothing, and yet every step she took rang out through the grove like a gong. She shone with a dark radiance, like copper or bronze.

  She moved toward Ms. Burden. Something trailed behind her like smoke, a shawl, maybe, or wings. Ms. Burden curled more tightly into herself, pressing against the ground as if trying to bury herself in it.

  “Look at me,” Talia said. Ms. Burden raised her head, then squinted and turned away, unable to bear her light. “I charge you to leave off your interference. To never trespass in my groves again.”

  Ms. Burden opened her mouth to speak but said nothing. She nodded.

  “Very well.” Talia turned away from her and headed for the trees.

  “Wait!” I said. She glanced back at me and I burned with embarrassment. What was I thinking, to order the gods like that? “I mean, I would like your help with something. Something important. Piper, my muse—he’s trapped within my sister. And she can’t manage him, she has no idea what to do—”

  “But that is something you can do yourself.”

  “No, please, wait—”

  “Remember what I told you.”

  I had no idea what she was talking about. “That I should think about poetry more? And less about laundry?”

  She laughed. “Almost. Except that laundry can be the most poetic thing.”

  She continued toward the trees. I expected to feel bereft after she had gone, but I was still fizzing from her visit, as if I had just finished writing a long epic poem.

  My sisters gathered around me. “What was she?” Beatriz asked. “Was she a muse?”

  I nodded.

  “And she said that you know how to help Rantha.”

  “I don’t, though. I don’t know what she meant.”

  “Free,” Amaranth said. “Free, fry, fro, from.”

  How could I free her, though? Had Talia meant that I should write a poem about her? Or had that been just a parting bit of advice, nothing to do with Piper and Amaranth?

  “I don’t know,” I said again.

  I looked around us. Ms. Burden was sitting on the ground now, her eyes glazed. Something seemed gone from her, that ambition that had overridden everything else.

  The sprites had returned to their games, now that nothing remained to catch t
heir interest. I watched them swimming in the lake, spiraling down the rocks, playing music and dancing. Something shone on the water like a rising moon.

  I looked closer. It was the apple Ms. Burden had brought from Pommerie Town, now resting on the shore of the lake. I glanced at her, alarmed, but she made no move to take it. I ran toward it and picked it up.

  I reached out, trying to sense what had become of it. It still held power, some residue of Talia, though less than before. I went to Amaranth.

  “Piper!” I said. “Piper, come out! You’re free!”

  Nothing happened. I called to him again. An arm appeared from Amaranth’s side, then seemed to be wrenched back inside.

  “Piper!” I said again. “Come here, to me! Please. You’re free, you can get away.”

  His leg jutted out for a moment, then it too disappeared. His hand reached out again, the long fingers groping for something, anything.

  I took hold of it. He gripped me so tightly that I felt my bones grind against each other, and I had to force myself not to let go. I pulled on him as hard as I could. His shoulder appeared, and then his head. He lurched the rest of the way and fell to the ground.

  He had an expression I’d never seen from him before, an almost human look, like someone forced to deal with the ravages of time and age and death. “What happened?” I asked.

  “I—I don’t know,” he said. “I was lost. I looked for a way out but I couldn’t find one. I wandered for years, centuries. Then I heard you calling me.” He shivered. “Never, never ask me to do that again.”

  “You wanted to do it!”

  “You shouldn’t have listened to me.”

  “And it wasn’t years. It was . . .” I counted. He had been gone for about six months, a long time. I decided not to tell him that.

  “It seemed like years. And she had dark places, so many of them, not like you. Though even she had places of light, meadows where I could rest. If not for that, I think I would have died.”

  I looked at Amaranth, wondering what she would make of this. She was staring straight ahead, unseeing. Her eyes were darker than usual, like the green of the sea shadowed by clouds.

  “Are you all right?” I asked her.

  “No.” She was shivering too, her teeth chattering. She sat down abruptly.

  “Can I get you anything? A blanket?”

  “No. Go away.”

  I drew back. Then I realized that she wasn’t rejecting me, she just needed to be by herself for a while. She would come back to the world when she was ready. I hoped so, anyway.

  “Look,” Beatriz said suddenly. “Oh, my God, look.”

  I turned. Talia and Claudio were sitting together under the trees. They leaned toward each other and then, as slowly as dawn breaking, they kissed.

  I’d never seen any of them kiss before. I glanced away, feeling as if I’d blundered into a hallowed place, one forbidden to humans. I had to turn back and look at them, though, unable to hold out against their enchantment

  Maeve had come over and was watching them as well. “Willa?” she said.

  Maeve’s voice had seemed too soft to carry, but Talia had heard and turned toward her. “Yes,” she said, smiling. She sounded almost human, though each word still shook and flared with her power. “That’s what you called me. Willa.”

  “I’m sorry I made you leave,” Maeve said.

  Talia wanted to be with Claudio, even I could tell that. And yet she spoke to Maeve with infinite patience. “I’d used you too roughly,” she said. “I’d known some who were able to withstand me, so I didn’t understand how much I’d asked you to bear. You couldn’t help doing what you did.”

  “I missed you so much. Do you—do you remember all those things we did?”

  “Of course.”

  “Do you think we could be together again, just for a while? Or maybe I could find another muse, a gentler one?”

  They regarded each other. A tear fell down Maeve’s cheek, the first time I’d ever seen her cry. “I understand,” she said. “I won’t ask again. But can I—can I come visit you?”

  Talia nodded. “You may,” she said.

  Claudio and Talia turned toward each other, paring their world down to the two of them. I had the crazy idea that everything that had happened, my father’s death, Ms. Burden becoming our guardian, our visit to Pommerie Town, all of it had occurred just so they could meet each other again. I still wonder if that’s true, sometimes.

  Suddenly I remembered the fire. “Let’s go, everyone,” I said. “We have to see what happened to the house.”

  No one moved. Amaranth was still deep within herself, and so was Ms. Burden, though for different reasons. Semiramis appeared to be searching for something. Only Beatriz seemed ready to return to the world.

  One of the sprites moved closer. She wore a circlet of daisies that fell crookedly over one eye. She went to Semiramis, and I saw Semiramis catch her breath, her eyes as big as teacups.

  The sprite raised her hand and reached out, and Semiramis did the same. Their hands touched. The sprite leaned closer and whispered something in her ear, and Semiramis giggled with delight. Then the sprite somersaulted away and joined her fellows.

  “Come on,” I said. “The house is on fire, remember?”

  “The house, right,” Maeve said.

  We started to leave the grove, all of us except Amaranth and Ms. Burden. I went back and took Amaranth’s hand. Ms. Burden could fend for herself, I thought, but at that moment she stood up and followed us. She seemed docile, with no hint of the haunted woman she had once been.

  We walked back slowly through the forest. For a while no one spoke, and then Semiramis said, “I thought she was the muse of comedy.”

  “What?” I said.

  “Talia. You said she was the muse of comedy—I heard you talking to Craig about it. But she didn’t seem very funny.”

  “Comedy used to mean something with a happy ending. Like The Divine Comedy.”

  “Does Ivory Apples have a happy ending?”

  “Why don’t you read it and find out?”

  She scowled at me. Still, I’d learned one thing as a parent; sometimes people needed to discover things for themselves.

  As we approached Maeve’s house I looked through the trees for smoke or the red glow of fire, but I didn’t see anything. It was a good sign, or at least I hoped so.

  Then I smelled smoke. I heard loud voices, and radios crackling, and the sound of cars coming and going. We stepped out into Maeve’s backyard. Lights pulsed, and men and women in yellow slickers were coiling up their hoses. Others were climbing into their fire trucks or walking through the house and calling out to each other.

  The living room, dining room, and kitchen were gone, everything except the stone chimney. Beyond them stood the hallway, which was flooded with water. The bedroom doors were open, but from where I stood I couldn’t see inside.

  Maeve made a surprised sound and put her hand to her mouth. The firefighter closest to her turned, looking startled. “Where did you come from?” he asked.

  I thrust the apple behind my back. Maeve didn’t answer, so I said, “Through the woods.”

  “Well, you’ll just have to go right back,” he said. “It isn’t safe here—something could come down at any minute.”

  “It’s our house,” I said.

  “That woman there seems to be in shock,” another firefighter said, nodding at Ms. Burden. She coaxed her to the picnic table in the backyard and sat her down. “What’s your name, ma’am?”

  Ms. Burden said nothing. She stared, unmoving, at a spot past the woman’s ear.

  “Who is she?” the woman asked us.

  “Her name’s Kate Burden,” I said. “She was visiting us and we went on a walk together. She seemed fine until we got back.” I looked at the others, trying to impress upon them that this was the official story, that they could never say anything about the grove and what had happened there.

  “We’ll have to take her to a hospi
tal and check her out. Is she related to you?”

  “No,” I said. “She’s a friend.”

  The woman put her arm across Ms. Burden’s back to help her up, and they walked to one of the trucks. The rest of us went over to the picnic table. As we sat down I noticed a book underneath one of the benches, and I bent to pick it up.

  It was a first edition of Ivory Apples, a very rare book; it had had a small print run, and few people had held on to their copy. Ms. Burden must have stolen it from the study when she’d tried to burn the house down. If Maeve signed it, I thought, we might have enough to rebuild the house, at least the essential parts.

  The house wasn’t important, though. I looked around the picnic table, at Maeve and my sisters. We had all come through. It was over.

  Then I realized that Piper hadn’t returned with us.

  CHAPTER 29

  BEFORE THEY LEFT, the firefighters asked us if we wanted to go with Ms. Burden to the hospital, and seemed surprised when we said no. I was beyond caring what they thought, though. “Well, you can’t stay here,” one of them said. “It isn’t safe, let alone dry. Go to a friend’s house, or a hotel.”

  We kept sitting at the picnic table after they’d gone, putting off any decisions until later. “I’m hungry,” Semiramis said.

  I turned to her. “What did that sprite say to you?” I asked.

  “She liked my necklace.”

  I looked at the small ivory apple hanging at her neck. Was that true? After everything that had happened, had she sought out Semiramis just to tell her something so trivial? Well, maybe she had. They had their own ideas about what was important.

  “What time do you think it is?” Beatriz asked.

  “Noon, I guess,” I said. Already the day seemed to have lasted for a hundred years, but the sun was directly overhead.

  I got up and went to the open space that was now the kitchen. I was moving slowly, as if in a dream, or an out-of-body experience. The cabinets were mostly gone, and drifts of ash spread across the floor like a frayed carpet. Inside the refrigerator, the plastic bins and shelves had melted, covering everything in what looked like cracked plastic snow.