by Sarah Zettel
I’ll say one thing about having Ivy along: she knew exactly where she was going. It was plain as paint that this was not the first time the brightest little star in Hollywood had gone sneaking around the studio. Lot No. 1 had straight streets, and the streams of cars and trucks and people that made up the studio’s private rush hour were filling them up fast. But Ivy ignored the main streets. She led us down alleys, between piles of used scenery and stacks of boards. She ducked through the trucks in the garage and out the back door, which opened onto the street, a route to the outside that Jack admitted in a whisper he hadn’t even known existed.
We’d reached the studio gate that opened onto Overland Avenue and the Lot No. 2 side. Ivy had us all crouch behind the garbage cans that had been set out for collection. It stank to high heaven, but she ignored that and looked at her watch. “We have to wait,” she whispered.
“For what?” I whispered back.
“Shift change.” She nodded toward the guard shack. I could just see a shadow moving in the little white house. “Jeff and Solly will talk racing. That’s when we go.”
She’d just finished when we saw a blue-uniformed guard coming up Overland, his tin lunch pail in one hand and a big thermos in the other. He strolled up to the guard shack and stood there with his back to us, talking to whoever was sitting in the house. Pretty soon he pulled a paper out of his back pocket and spread it out.
Ivy signaled us with a wave and took off running. She had a turn of speed on her I wouldn’t have expected. She darted through the gate and back behind another row of garbage cans on the inside of the fence. Keeping low, she edged out from behind the cans and sneaked behind a tin-roofed shed. I followed with Jack, expecting any second to hear somebody yell “Halt!”
A few more twists and turns and we were in the middle of the warehouse district, with men in caps and shirtsleeves moving whole apartment buildings’ worth of furniture in and out of sheds. They didn’t even look up as we raced past. Finally, on a road that ran between the warehouses and a set of old-fashioned small-town houses, Ivy decided we were safe. She ducked into the unfinished back of one of those pretty little houses and made a big show of grinning and fanning her face. Jack made a show of applauding, so Ivy dropped a curtsy.
“How’d you know about all this?” Maybe I shouldn’t have been so surprised after her imitation of Tully on the phone, but I was.
She shrugged. “All the studio kids do it. If we didn’t, we’d never get any time to ourselves. Now, follow me!”
We did. We ran and ducked and waited and tiptoed. Ivy led us through a city’s worth of crowds and confusion in a place where she was easily the most recognized little girl going, and not one person so much as turned their head. We took the long way around, past the small-town railway station and a ramshackle street that was supposed to be China or India or someplace like that. We cut through Italy and Spain and came out in a proper English garden with carefully clipped hedges and blooming roses. I picked up flashes of feeling from the behind-the-scenes workers as we hustled past. They were anxious, tired, strained, focused. Everyone was wishing that this time things would go right. I felt those wishes pushing against me, and I had to push back hard to keep them out. It was tiring and didn’t leave much room in my thoughts for planning or wondering, or even for really watching where I was going. So when Jack skidded to a halt behind a gardener’s shed, I smacked into him nose-first.
“Oh, no!” gasped Ivy. “Not today!”
I peered around Jack, still rubbing my nose. There was the Waterloo Bridge and the twisty lake in front of us. We only had the lawn and the fake cemetery between us and it. But the cemetery wasn’t empty. A woman knelt in front of one small, crooked cross, her head and shoulders bowed.
“What’s she doing?” whispered Jack.
I was wondering that too, because even at this distance, I could see the woman was Mrs. Brownlow.
16
Like a Motherless Child
“What do we do?” I shrank farther back behind the shed.
“Nothing,” said Ivy through gritted teeth. “Just wait. She’ll go away. She never stays long.”
Jack said quietly, “She’s crying.”
She was. Great rivers of tears streaked both her cheeks. She cried like one of the graveyard statues might have—no shaking shoulders, no sobs, just those tears rolling silently down.
Ivy sighed sharply. She looked left and right, then marched out into the movie cemetery.
“Mama!”
Slowly Mrs. Brownlow turned her head and looked up at the girl standing over her. She didn’t bother to wipe her wet face. “Ivy?”
“Of course it’s Ivy. What are you doing here? For heaven’s sake, get up!”
But Mrs. Brownlow’s gaze had already drifted back down to the lopsided plaster cross. “It’s just so sad. She’s dead, you know.”
“No one’s dead, Mama. This is a movie set!” Ivy got both hands under Mrs. Brownlow’s elbows and boosted her to her feet. “Now, go home.” Ivy turned her firmly in the direction of Main Street.
“Yes. I want to go home.” Mrs. Brownlow swayed and stumbled. She caught herself and fumbled with her pocket-book. But she did not seem the least bit ready to begin walking. Instead, she stepped around in a careful, awkward circle until she faced Ivy again. “Can I please go now?”
I bit my lip. Jack was practically vibrating, he was trying so hard to hold himself still. Our eyes locked, and he nodded as he understood what I meant to do. Maybe I was losing us a chance at the one gate we knew about, or worse, but I was not going to leave Mrs. Brownlow trapped by whatever magic held her. I wouldn’t leave Ivy stuck in her confusion and fury either.
“The bungalow, Mama,” said Ivy impatiently. “You’re going back to the bungalow and you’re going to stay there.”
“Be ready to run,” I whispered.
Jack shifted his weight into a sprinter’s crouch. I sucked in a deep breath and focused on Mrs. Brownlow. Then I opened my magic and looked again.
It was a good thing I was already hunkered down on the ground, or I would have fallen over. Mrs. Brownlow was enchanted all right, only it wasn’t just one bit of magic holding her. It was a thousand. At first, it felt like the puppet strings that held my parents and made them dance. But as I stared with my magic eyes, I saw this was a whole lot different. It was … Sloppy was the first word that came to me. Little enchantments had been thrown at Olive Brownlow and made to stick until their competing demands wrapped around her like a cocoon. There was still a person in there. I could just barely feel her under all those suffocating layers. What I couldn’t feel was how to set Mrs. Brownlow free. If I just started cutting at that huge tangle of magic, I might hurt her.
Jack laid his hand on my shoulder in silent warning. I yanked my magic back in so my regular senses cleared. That was when I heard the crunch of tires on the dirt road. Jack retreated farther behind the shed, pushing me with him, just as the Rolls-Royce pulled up. The back window was half open, and I saw Tully’s sour face staring out.
Mrs. Brownlow was patting her curls to make sure they were in place and adjusting her hat. “But I don’t want to go to the bungalow,” she told her daughter. “I want to go home.”
Ivy’s temper snapped. “That is home, you silly woman!” she screamed. “What do I have to do—”
“Miss Ivy!” Tully climbed out of the car without waiting for Sumner to get the door. “What on earth …?”
A man clambered out behind Tully. He was short, white, and balding and carried a doctor’s bag in his pudgy hand. Ivy turned, and as soon as she spotted him, all the fury and impatience were gone. In an instant, she became nothing but an anxious little girl holding her mother’s hand.
“Oh, thank goodness, Mrs. Tully!” Ivy ran up to the housekeeper and hugged her. “Mama’s had a turn. She needs help!”
The doctor stepped forward. He was the kind of man who radiated calm and efficiency. Tully pulled herself out of Ivy’s grip and followed along behin
d him, the thick lenses of her glasses glinting in the sun.
“Now then, Mrs. Brownlow, what’s the matter?” The doctor took Mrs. Brownlow’s wrist in one hand and pulled out a pocket watch. “Not feeling well today, is it?”
“I’d like to go home now, please,” Mrs. Brownlow said politely, like she was ordering a cherry Coke at the soda fountain. The woman was still there under the enchanted tangle that commanded her to stay put, to smile, to forget. That woman really did want to go home to where her daughter was. Even though her daughter was right here. Even though she thought her daughter was dead. It didn’t make sense, but it was all in there, and it was slowly dying like it was starved for air.
Tully hovered behind the doctor, ready to jump in if she saw anything she didn’t like. She thought she was looking after her interests. Maybe she was, but she was also in the way.
“Wish, Jack,” I murmured. “Wish Tully gone.”
Jack nodded, and I reached for his wish.
Nothing happened. Nothing at all. It was like somebody’d slapped a blindfold on me. I couldn’t feel the wish. I couldn’t even find it. In fact, I could barely feel Jack.
“Yes, yes.” The doctor tucked his watch away and laid his hand on Mrs. Brownlow’s forehead. “We’ll take care of that. You come with me now, and I’ll take you home.”
“What’s the matter?” hissed Jack.
“I can’t … I can’t feel.” I was smothered and blind, deaf and dumb.
“Thank you.” Mrs. Brownlow smiled and followed along, docile as any lost lamb.
I found myself looking at Ivy, who was playing the part of the worried, confused daughter. Then I looked at Tully, frowning like a thundercloud as the doctor gently helped Mrs. Brownlow into the car while Sumner held the door. “You’ll watch her, won’t you, Mrs. Tully?” Ivy clutched the housekeeper’s hand. “I’ve got my shoot this afternoon—I won’t be able to be there. Please say you will.”
Mrs. Tully looked sourly down at the young actress. She had only so many options right now, and she knew it. “You should be in school,” she said.
“And I’m going. Right now. I just … somebody had to stay with Mama.” There was absolutely no accusation in the statement, just a pathetic sadness. Mrs. Tully didn’t want to buy it, but she had no choice. The doctor leaned out of the Rolls, clearly wanting to get the show on the road. Tully sighed sharply, conceding the battle to Ivy, and got into the car.
The world returned in a rush. I collapsed against the garden shed. Jack shuffled beside me, concerned, questioning. Out at the edge of the cemetery, Ivy stood clasping her hands in front of her and putting everything she had into acting brave as the Rolls pulled away.
I tried to shake Jack off, but he wouldn’t be shaken. He helped me stand and waited until my tremors eased. He thought I was weak. I wasn’t. I was mad. Burning, boiling, steaming mad.
Ivy was looking around to make sure the coast was clear. Then she gestured for us to join her, quick.
“You shouldn’t have seen that,” she muttered bitterly as we came up to her side.
“It’s okay,” I told her. “I’ve … there’s some good news.”
“There is?” This time Ivy’s confusion was genuine. “What?”
“Well, it’s sort of good.” I hesitated. “Your mother’s not sick or anything. She’s magicked.”
“What?”
“Somebody’s been magicking her, for a long time now. I tried to help her, but it was too much for me. I’m sorry,” I added.
For the first time since I’d met her, Ivy’s face went completely blank. “You … you tried to magic my mother?”
“Only to see if I could help her. You have to stop being mad at her, Ivy. It’s not her fault she’s like she is.”
Ivy sat down, right on the grass. Slowly she tried on a set of different expressions, like she was trying to figure out which one fit the scene best—wide-eyed shock, scrunched-up worry, or tight, frowning anger.
“We can still find a way to help.” Jack sat down beside her. “Once we’ve got Callie’s parents out. Her pop’s a real fairy. He’ll be able to do something to take the magic off your mother.”
“But …” Ivy hesitated, and tried on a few more expressions. Bewilderment lifted her eyebrows, concentration lowered them, tears glittered in her eyes.
“It was Tully,” I said.
“Tully!” Ivy actually giggled. “But she’s just a housekeeper!”
“That doesn’t mean she can’t be half Seelie,” I said. “It’d be a great way to keep herself near the movies, and help case the joint for people they’d want to take to their court.”
“Tully!” Ivy shook her head again. “I don’t believe it. You think Tully’s a fairy?”
“You’ve got to believe it, Ivy,” said Jack. “No matter what happens next, you’ve got to get her away from the house. Get Mr. Mayer to fire her if you have to, but get her away from you.”
Ivy stuck out her chin. “Okay. That’s just what I’ll do.”
“Go now,” I urged her. “It’ll be better if you’re out of the way.”
“No!” cried Ivy immediately. “I’m not going alone. There might be … more of them. I can’t.” She grabbed Jack’s hand. “Please don’t make me.”
Jack shot a glance at me. He’d seen how fast Ivy could try on expressions and emotions just like I had. I think he was impressed in an almost professional way, as a fellow people-charmer. I also think he wanted to believe she wasn’t acting when she looked at him, but he’d been around too much to swallow that easily. At least I hoped he had, because what he did was pat her hand in a big-brotherly kind of way.
“We won’t make you do anything, Ivy, but we’ve got to be quick, and you have to stay out of sight.”
“I will. Just like I said.”
“Okay, then.” Jack flashed one of his best smiles. “Callie? What do we do now?”
I didn’t really know, but I faced the dark span of the Waterloo Bridge anyway. I was starting to hate this place. I wanted to be gone from here. My brain was full, tired, and confused. I shoved my wishes and wanting down so I could ease my magic back open.
The world around us shifted focus. The clamor of the wishes and work filled the spaces between normal sights and sounds. It was spiced with the complex, curious feel of the place in front of us, which had been built so fast, and built to be so many things. Wishes and feelings had been crystallized here, and new ones made. All that work, all that new thinking and new hoping blended together like orchestra music. I wanted to stop and savor it all, but I couldn’t. We had no time for me to get dizzy, distracted, and stupid on other people’s feelings. I pushed forward. I had to find the gate.
After a while, I felt something that might have been what Uncle Shake called a thin place, but I couldn’t quite make sense of it. It was like there was something in between me and it. I thought I could reach through if I strained, but I’d have to open up further, and I was already taking a risk. Tully might return, or she might send one of her friends. Slowly I pulled myself back. It wasn’t easy. My magic didn’t like being shut off once it started to warm up.
“I need to get closer.”
“Okay. Let’s go, Ivy.” Jack took her hand and nodded to me. Ivy sighed and blinked up at him. I tried not to see. I also tried not to get mad. She’d just been told that her mother was magicked and that she was in real danger, and she was still acting. When was she going to cut it out and take this seriously?
We slipped across the road and onto the curve of the bridge. I shivered. Last time we’d been here, the Seelies had almost caught us. I wondered where Mr. Robeson was now, and why he hadn’t called. Another sliver of anger stabbed into me. So much for all his stuff about wanting to help.
I could feel the gate more clearly from here. In fact, it was right underneath us. It was small and had raggedy edges, and it squirmed as I tried to get my magic around it. I kept reaching, but my grip kept slipping. I frowned. Maybe the squirm was the ward Grandmother had
talked about. Maybe it was the Seelie equivalent of a NO TRESPASSING sign.
For a minute I wished Shake was here so I could ask him what to do. But that probably wasn’t a good idea.
“Ivy, you keep a lookout.” I took a deep breath. “I’m going under the bridge.”
“In that water?” Ivy pulled a face that couldn’t have been good for her famously delicate complexion. “Yuck!”
I agreed with her, but I wasn’t going to waste any breath on it.
“You’ll be okay up here on your own?” Jack asked Ivy.
“Of course, silly.” She slapped his arm. “You saw. I can get anybody to do anything out here.”
“Okay, then. Let’s go, Callie.”
We hurried down the far side of the bridge. I kept sneaking side glances at Jack, because he kept sneaking side glances back up at Ivy.
“What’re you looking at?” he whispered as we turned toward the water’s edge.
“ ‘You’ll be okay up here on your own?’ ” I singsonged back at him. “She’s a big faker, Jack!”
“Oh, lay off,” he grumbled. “She’s not like you. The act’s all she’s got.”
“I’m not so sure about that. She was awfully good at working the system here.”
“Yeah, and if you had to get around Tully all the time, you would be too.”
I shook my head. It didn’t add up, but there wasn’t time to argue about it now. I had to get myself into that black lake.
Yuck.
I didn’t bother pulling my borrowed penny loafers off. I just sat at the edge of the lake, gritted my teeth, and slid down into the water. It only came up to my waist, which was good, because I didn’t know the first thing about swimming. It was warm and oily, and my feet raised the stink of tar and garbage as I shuffled forward. There was a layer of slime on the bottom that I just plain didn’t want to think about, but it did make me really, really glad I’d kept my shoes on.