by Sakurapu
"We have to be quiet," she told Dred, leaning as close as he dared as an opportunistic grin claimed his face. "Come on." She pulled his sleeve as they quietly, quickly took the steps down to a lower row.
They found seats in the fourth row to the front, with a good view of the stage yet far enough away from the orchestra pit not to be bombarded with percussion.
"Tybalt! Enter and challenge Romeo!" Ms. Decker's husky tone called out as the music lowered.
Onstage, the street scene was set for the fight with Tybalt, Mercutio, and Romeo. The setting was a steampunk inspired alley, with vapor rising from a few of the behind set pipes. The backdrop was painted as brick buildings in gray and charcoal with copper pipes snaking across them. Some were real PVC pipes painted copper, some just painted onto the wooden backdrop. In the fore, Tybalt, Mercutio, and Romeo, played by freshmen Chris and Thom and sophomore Jarod, were dressed in jeans and linen tunics belted at their waists with rope.
Dred sat back as he and Ivy took their seats in the sparsely populated audience. "Not very good costumes."
She shushed him. "These are only practice costumes. The real ones are still being made."
"You?"
"No. A lady in Shanonton, about six miles from Rasperville. She did Pippin last year for the old drama instructor." Ivy leaned forward on the seat in front of her. "It was good, but not like this—just standard Pippin."
"Oh."
Onstage, all three actors were milling around, wooden swords drawn as insults were tossed. The band played the shrill, sharp music in the background until Jarod ran through Chris with his sword, who took a full moment to fall and die. The lights dimmed and a spotlight shone on Jarod as he faced the audience. The music wove back around to the first verse, this time louder, and Jarod belligerently sang out his crime and guilt.
Ivy crossed her arms over each other on the chair back, smiling at Romeo's unapologetic song. Dred leaned beside her on the next chair back.
"You know him?"
"Jarod? No, not really. Only seen him here." She pointed and lowered her voice to a barely audible whisper. "Lornie said he's really talented."
"Where is she?"
"Shh. She's backstage, watching."
Jarod wound down the song as the musicians let the music trail out. As soon as it did, a black-clad figure jumped onstage and clapped a few times.
"Very good. very good. Okay, that's fine for the fight." Ms. Decker turned around and waved off the spotlight. It shed away. She put her hands on her hips, appearing more student age than her thirty years. "Okay, now we'll move on to the orchard. Backdrop, please! Nurse, whatever is done of your costume will do, Heidi!"
Ivy sat back, holding her breath. "I haven't seen the nurse or Juliet's dress yet, not in full."
Dred slouched beside her. "I thought this was a dress rehearsal."
"I guess not all the costumes are done. There's a lot to do." She looked up at him, watching his eyes flick across the stage as props were wheeled in and out. "Do you do any sports?"
"Eh, yeah. Some." He ginned at her, nudging his arm closer that was already commandeering the armrest. "Fencing."
"Really?" She appraised him anew. "We don't have fencing here. We're too small for most sports . . . but fencing? That's cool."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah." She sat back, watching him slink into his chair. "What did you think of the fight scene?"
"Not bad."
Chapter Four
The weekend broke chill and crisp, but by the time Ivy and her dad got to the town square, the air had warmed to nearly spring temperatures. He walked slowly beside her in his casual clothes, chinos and a polo shirt, while she volleyed between wanting to pretend they weren't together and hoping they could spend the morning sampling carnival food.
"Don't worry, I won't cramp your style," he said, elbowing her side until she suppressed a giggle.
"I'm not worried," she told him, pulling her jacket tighter against a shift in breeze.
Around them the sights and sounds of the carnival were in full swing. The mainway they were on was already bare of grass in some spots, down to nubby green blades in others. To one side was the farmers' market and to the other the vendors with tables and canopies set up over tables of handcrafted items. The carnival rides and a small petting farm was beyond the market and vendors, scattered amid food stalls and trailers and skill games. The stage near the gazebo was already occupied with a brass band and a military quartet crooning songs from the Big Band era.
"Anyone you know?" Ivy asked her dad as his gaze rested on the uniformed singers.
He chuckled and shook his head. "I'm not that old, Ivybelle." He fished a hand into his pocket and came out with a fold of bills. "Now, before you get spotted by some of your friends—"
"Dad!"
"Take this and get something to eat. I know you promised to hang out with me, but I know how girls are." He winked, grinning. "Girl talk doesn't include dads."
She took the money. "Thanks, Dad, but I doubt we'll get much girl talk in. Lornie promised her uncle she'd help out, so it might not be so fun."
"Well, I'll be at the pie tables, wishing."
Some of her smile fell away. "Oh . . .? Anyone I know, Dad?"
He shook his head. "Not that, Ivy. Just pie. I like pie."
"I know. I wish I could make a better apple pie." She meant it, too. Maybe she should have put more of her talent time into baking than sewing.
"Your apple pie is just fine," he said, smiling crookedly. "With enough ice cream."
"Yeah, like a quart." She looked around at the menagerie of colors and banners vying for attention along the mainway. "I'm going to find Lornie. Meet you at the pie table at . . .?"
"Six? Or call if you need more time."
"Yup. Bye!"
She immediately dissolved into the crowd heading deeper into the vendor area. She was surrounded by out-of-towners, strollers with bewildered babies and excited toddlers, and a few dogs on leashes. The smell of caramel apples, varieties of bratwursts, and exotic French fries filled the air amid talking and laughter. It took a while to let the pack of people around her mosey to the larger tents nearer the carnival rides. She'd only seen Lornie's uncle's tie-dye display twice; most of the time, her uncle had a different schedule that clashed with Rasperville's Autumn Fest.
The canvas sides of the tie-dye tent were rolled up to allow visitors to browse the tables and racks stacked and hung with brilliantly tie-dyed shirts, hoodies, dresses, vests, and baby clothes. It looked like a rainbow had dived into a colored playball pit.
The group of people in front of Ivy split off with "oohs" and "ahhs" as they dispersed to the tables and racks. Ivy had to wait a few moments to make her way around three giddy little girls pulling out matching tank tops at one rack. By the time she found Lornie, the festival main stage had picked up a new tune, this one folksier. A blend of voices harmonized with an accordion and violin.
Ivy stopped and looked toward the stage, which was out of sight. The trippingly bright tune wove through the crowds, making a quick hop echo above the laughter and carnival canned music. A man and woman's voices sang along, a Balkan or Serbian flavor to their tune.
"Ivy!" Lornie called.
Ivy's attention broke from trying to see the stage from the tie-dye tent.
Lornie stood across the tables and racks at the other side of the tent, waving, clad in a multi-colored flower-explosion sundress. She waved frantically as two plump women stepped between them.
The song ended and switched to a seafaring shanty by the same voices, and Ivy mazed along the tables to Lornie. Something in the music sounded familiar, but she couldn't determine just what. She'd never heard the combination of instruments before, at least, not since her father's Polish cousin's wedding a few years back. Fritz Hrez, also in the school play, had made a goodhearted attempt for the town's Hands Across Time talent show last summer with a polka and goscie jada number that stuck in everyone's minds for months. Maybe that was why
it sounded familiar, she decided.
She couldn't understand the lyrics or language the gypsies sang, but by the time she got to Lornie, Ivy was humming along, too.
Lornie was making change for the two women with clear plastic bags of wildly colored tie-dye clothing when Ivy reached her. "It's been so busy!" Lornie nearly screeched. "Ah! Since, like, eight a.m."
"You got here that early?" Ivy stood beside Lornie as a teen boy and girl stepped up in the line forming of customers. "Why so early?"
"My uncle had to open early and then go help the gypsy camp."
Ivy burst out laughing, but one look at Lornie's miffed face as she made change made her stop. "Really? Gypsies?"
"That's what the Travelling Notes call themselves. In public." Lornie nodded to the stage area that was mostly out of sight from the canopy. "Something about a midwife, a broken wheel, and a set of lost daggers."
Ivy's face pinched in confusion.
"And a dowry. Yeah, don't ask. Something only the Camp understands." Lornie counted change and handed back a teen couple's money and bags of matching T-shirts. "I did see some really cool artwork on my way in, near the artsy tables by the stage. Like, gothic and romance era stuff. I think you'd like it."
"Yeah, I don't know. That was kind of last year, when we were doing charcoals in elective drawing class." Ivy tried to see more of the stage, but a food trailer selling elephant ears blocked her view. "How long will you be here?"
"All day." Lornie brightened. "At least time goes faster when it's busy."
"What about a break?"
"Not until two."
Ivy checked the time on her cell phone. "Three hours?"
Lornie hitched herself up on the stool behind her, clamping her feet around the long wooden legs. "It's not so bad. Really busy."
As if on cue, three women and two strollers carved a path between the tables and parked by the cash register behind Lornie on a taller stool, leaving barely enough room for people to squeeze past the nearest table.
Ivy waited for Lornie to ring up the three women's orders, including two tie-dye shorts sets for the toddlers sleeping in the strollers. "Want me to stay and—?"
"Actually," Lornie said, smiling with a giggle, "Dred's been looking for you."
Ivy felt an odd glitch in her stomach. "Yeah?"
"Yeah. He's been here twice, even asked for your cell phone number. Told him you were with your dad for the day." Lornie pulled her tie-dye mini-skirt down her thighs as she sat, eyes checking its modesty. "So, I think he's around if you want to find him."
"I don't know." Ivy's gaze drifted across the food trucks. Most were buzzing with hungry guests and a few bees.
"You like him?" Lornie lowered her tone. "I mean, he seems nice, and definitely interested in you."
"I think he's just new to town, maybe took the Welcome Wagon as a placeholder until he makes other friends." She bit her bottom lip, still searching the food vendors.
"Because it looks to me like you're looking for him."
Ivy's gaze shot to her. "Do I?"
"Yeah." Lornie shrugged.
A rhapsody broke out from the music, the voices following in lyrics.
"I guess he's all right."
A dark shadow passed over the tent, bringing with it a breeze that rustled the racks of clothing, leaving skirts swaying. Ivy and Lornie looked up in time to see a large, predatory-looking bird slip out of sight among the tall trees over the stage.
"I guess I could check out the artwork," Ivy finally said.
"Thought so." Lornie snapped on a smile as a woman approached with an armful of brightly dyed clothing.
Ivy moved out from under the tent. "I'll bring you back a candy apple!"
Lornie tossed her a wadded up five-dollar bill, which Ivy barely caught. "And a watermelon freeze!"
Ivy didn't see Dred on her way to the stage area, but she did keep an eye out for him. She couldn't quite decide if she was disappointed or not. At the stage, two figures in typical gypsy attire were playing an accordion and violin, a familiar melody coming from the instruments.
Ivy stood at the back of the gathered crowd beneath the mature oak trees in a semi-circle before the stage, watching. No one around her seemed to care that the song was 300 years old, Old World European, or even very basic. The man and woman onstage wore matching tasseled, embroidered vests, keeping perfect time as they played and sang. When the song ended, a third man, this one heavier and older, came out of the back carrying a brass tuba. They played another tune, more upbeat with an oompah rhythm. The crowd was soon clapping in time. When it finished, the woman stepped forward and began a doleful Those Were the Days, My Friend in Russian.
Ivy glanced around for the artwork Lornie had mentioned. A few lines of chairs away, near the picnic tables at one side of the stage, thin wooden easels were set up, each holding a single painting. She sifted through the crowd until she was face to face with the first painting.
It was a woman standing on a narrow wooden bridge or pier over misty water with swirling fog wrapping around her. She was in a wispy cobwebby dress that hung from her like a moody cape, her black hair draping her shoulders and bosom like tendrils of a spider. A haunting look was on her face, her eyes large and dark, skin pale in the opal-white moonlight from above. The colors were all black and gray, save for a necklace of red beads the woman held in her lowered hand. She faced the viewer, a forlorn feeling of chill and departure in her posture.
As Ivy looked closer at the painting, she saw the hazy outline of a wooden bridge or pier dissolving behind the woman to the vanishing point amid delicately outlined, leaf-bare trees. To her, it looked like the woman was leaving someone—the viewer—and was setting off on a reluctant trip. Maybe a voyage, Ivy thought, seeing the wooden walkway. She frowned; but with the trees behind the woman, maybe it was the viewer who was leaving from the bridge or pier.
"Wow," she breathed, caught in the woman's pale beauty.
The dress, woman's hair, and fog all swirled in the same direction, as if she was caught in a small, slow moving eddy of fog over the water. Maybe the viewer wasn't leaving at all: maybe the woman was disappearing into a vortex of mist.
Ivy stepped back, seemingly rooted to the ground. She took a deep breath as the crowd around her was suddenly too loud. She glanced to the stage, surprised to see a puppet show now in progress. She wondered where the musicians had gone. She didn't recall hearing their music end, or even any applause. The puppet show was Jack and the Beanstalk, just as the cow was being sold.
She looked back at the painting. The marcasite style frame glinted in the afternoon sun, but the fog seemed just as chilly as before.
"There you are! Geez, Ivy, take my money and run," Lornie said as she wove in between the crowd to where Ivy stood.
Ivy frowned. "Sorry. Your uncle let you go early?"
Lornie blinked twice. "No. It's seven minutes after two. Did you drink my freeze?"
Ivy looked down to the five-dollar bill still in her hand. "No. N-no . . . I mean, I didn't get it yet."
Lornie refastened her ponytail band. "Well, let's go get something to eat. I'm starved."
Ivy's eyes went back to the painting.
The woman in mist seemed to stare back, her eyes dark and longing.
"You like that?" Lornie nodded at the painting. "Creepy, huh?"
Ivy shook her head, feeling as if the painting's fog had invaded her mind and taken three hours of her day. "I can't believe it's so late. Yeah," she said slowly, tearing her eyes from the painting. "Let's . . . Let's get something to eat."
"How long have you been looking at these pictures?" Lornie carefully watched Ivy's face.
Ivy's gaze went back to the woman in the mist. "It's intriguing. The others," she said, glancing for the first time at the other more colorful paintings, "didn't have the same . . . appeal."
Lornie gave the rest of the paintings in the line of easels a nod. "Guess not. Ready?"
Chapter Five
Ivy went
through the rest of the day eating and taking in the festival's weirdness, barely aware of her father collecting her at six o'clock, pie in hand. She and Lornie made plans to stack the odds in their favor of being partnered up for the upcoming climate study assignment at school, and then she walked her dad to the festival's west entrance.
"Are you sure? I can wiggle my way out if you'd rather me stay for the weekend," her dad said, earnestness replacing his pie smile. "I can tell Woodbridge they'll have to wait until Monday for a new design."
Ivy worked her father's excuse of the last half an hour of explanation back through her head. Occasionally he had to make sudden onsite changes to city designs, usually after an impromptu meeting at some town he was working with had another planner come in. She was fine with it, usually staying a night with Lornie or Camille or having them stay with her, and sometimes, stay on her own overnight. "I'm fine. I'll go home soon and have mac and cheese tonight."
He was digging in his pants pocket, nodding. "All right. If you're sure." He held out two bills. "Take something home from the Fest if you'd rather. Pierogi and Pagoda has your favorite dumplings, I noticed. Grab some. I'll leave now, swing by the house and get my bag together, and text you when I leave. Okay?"
She nodded. "Sure, Dad. Sounds okay."
For a moment the reluctant smile stayed on his face. "Okay. Call me if you need anything, and before you go to bed, and if—"
"Okay, Dad. I've done it before." She stuffed the twenty dollar bills into her shorts. "I'll be fine."
"All right." He kissed her cheek quickly. "See you later, Ivybelle. Don't stay too late."
"I won't." She watched him leave, waving halfway to the parking lot across the street. She returned the wave, feeling a twinge of isolation. She shrugged it off.
The festival music turned to a pop tune Ivy hated—but knew all the words to. "I will not sing," she breathed adamantly. Instead, she hummed a tune she couldn't place the name from in her memory bank.