“But why is she stalking you like this? There are thousands of authors in the world.”
“Well, because of Willa.”
“Who’s Willa?”
She laughed. “Oh, that’s what I called her. I named her after my grandmother, because they were so much alike. Willa—Grandma Willa—was a strong woman, forbidding, tall and awkward, and her face looked like a slab of stone. I was always a little afraid of her.”
Willa sounded like Maeve, though Maeve seemed unaware of it. “So, wait—Willa is the sprite you met in the grove?” I asked. “I thought women got male sprites, and men got female ones.”
“Not in my experience. Anyway, Willa, my Willa, was very forceful. She felt like a sword of fire had run through me, or like drinking pure spirits. Far too powerful for the child I was then.”
I hadn’t felt Piper as a sword of fire, I thought. Well, perhaps they weren’t all alike.
Then I realized something, and I shivered suddenly, as if my bones had turned to ice. “You talk about her in the past tense,” I said. “Did she—is she gone?”
She shook her head, saying nothing for a long while. “Yes, dear,” she said finally. “She left me.”
“But why?”
“Well, she couldn’t stay. I was too weak for her.”
I thought about how I’d found Maeve, unmoving, close to death. “But you’re better now. Can’t she come back?”
“I’m not sure. It would be hard, very hard.”
“And they can do that? Just leave?”
“I don’t know about all of them, dear. She’s the only one I ever knew.”
“All gone,” Maeve had said when I’d found her. I’d thought she was talking about the people she’d known who had died, and I’d been worried that she didn’t want to live. But this might be even worse.
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “Are you—how do you feel?”
“Well, it wasn’t easy,” she said. “But I’ve gotten used to it.”
She was trying to speak briskly, I saw, to move on to more practical things. I fumbled around for something more to ask her. “So Willa—she helped you with your book?”
“I thought you would have figured it out by now,” she said. “I asked you once how your writing was going, remember?”
“You mean my poems—I’m writing poems because of Piper?”
“Not because of him, not directly. You’re writing poems because you want to write poems. But the sprites show us things, a way beyond this world. Like the muses, really.”
Hadn’t she told me they were tricksters? “But muses—aren’t they those women in Greece somewhere, with long flowing dresses?”
She laughed. “Well, that’s how the Greeks thought of them, I’m sure. Very decorous, those Greeks, with their ‘nothing in excess.’ Art isn’t decorous, though—it’s messy and dangerous, it takes you to frightening places.”
I remembered my own thoughts, that I’d stolen past all the conventions and the rules, that I’d come upon a divine fire. The tricksters were connected to fire, Maeve had said.
And she was right—I should have realized all of this myself. I’d been too busy breaking in to people’s houses to think about it, to understand how my poetry used some of the same skills. Breaking and entering into the realm of the gods.
“All right, so why am I writing poems and you wrote a novel? And why did you stop?”
“It takes people differently, I think. I met a musician once who had his own muse. Though I was pretty certain you’d turn out to be a writer, just from what I knew about you.”
She hadn’t told me why she’d stopped writing, I noticed. But she was being so helpful for once that I put that aside to ask later.
“How does Ms. Burden know about all of this? And how did she connect you to Ivory Apples?”
“That I don’t know. There were always theories about the muses, people passing information along.”
Suddenly I remembered something. “On the website—you know there’s a website about you, right?” I said.
“What’s a website?”
I sighed. She’d gotten a computer, finally, or I wouldn’t have been able to write so many letters, but she never used it. “It’s a place on the computer, where people go to share things that interest them,” I said. “I’ll show you later. Anyway, there’s this site about you, and someone posted this whole long essay about how you went to Pommerie Town and discovered the secret of the muses and they gave you your book.”
She smiled slyly, an old familiar expression. “There you are,” she said. “Theories. Who wrote that, do you know?”
“They don’t use their real names, mostly. This one just called themselves Watchmaker.”
“Watchmaker?” She moved forward in her chair, looking apprehensive. “There’s a watchmaker in Ivory Apples.”
“Yeah, but he doesn’t do a lot, does he?”
“He does enough,” she said.
I didn’t remember much about him. I should probably read the book again, I thought. “You know what I wonder?” I asked. “I wonder if Ms. Burden wrote that essay. If she’s Watchmaker.”
Maeve didn’t seem to be listening. Talk of the Watchmaker had disturbed her somehow. I tried another question. “Why don’t you want anyone to know about them, those muses? Why did you and my father go to all that trouble to keep this place secret?”
“It isn’t me, child. They’re the ones who don’t want discovery. I’m not sure why, really. They’re vulnerable in some way, I think. They can be captured, maybe even imprisoned. And of course there would be people coming to bother them, from all over the world. They like their isolation.”
“I wish I could have told Ms. Burden, though. It would have been so much easier if I could have just taken her to the grove.”
“Really? What if she attracted a muse to her, and became a famous writer?”
“That wouldn’t even matter,” I said. Maeve studied me, and under her heavy scrutiny I was forced to admit the truth. “All right, I’d hate it. She doesn’t deserve it—she’s a horrible person. It would be like rewarding her for all the things she’s done.”
“Well, it isn’t up to us. They’re the ones who choose, who decide how best to bestow their gifts. I’ve seen people come to the grove hoping to be rewarded, to be burned in the muses’ fire, and go away disappointed.”
I had a sudden urge to bring Ms. Burden to the grove and watch her get rejected. But I couldn’t risk it, not if she knew how to control them. “Those noises I told you about, in our house and Ms. Burden’s—could they be muses, sprites, that she’d imprisoned? They sounded somehow, well, in despair. As if they’d lost everything.”
Maeve shook her head. “I don’t know, dear. I’d tell you if I did.”
“Why are you answering all my questions? You never did before.”
“Well, the best way to teach is for the student to learn by herself. That’s how she comes to understanding. But the situation’s changed now, and I don’t have the luxury of waiting. We need to move quickly.”
“What situation?”
“Well, where are your sisters?”
“Where?” Was she that confused, that she didn’t remember where we lived? “They’re at the house in Eugene.”
“Oh.” She sighed. “I was hoping you knew.”
“Knew what?”
“I sent my companion to visit your house. To see how you were.”
“Wait a minute. What companion?”
“The girl they sent me. I knew I needed help, you see, but I didn’t know anyone I could call. The only place I could think of was that Italian restaurant in Woodbine that used to deliver our dinners. So I called them, and fortunately they knew someone who was looking for work, a high school student named May. She stopped coming a while ago, two months, I think. Or was it three?”
So that was what she’d meant by saying she’d ordered someone from the restaurant. I felt relieved; when I’d first heard this I’d thought that she’d left rea
lity altogether.
“I told May to only talk to you or your sisters, not that woman,” she went on. “I didn’t know her name then, you see. And when May came back she said there was no one at home. Worse than that—she said it looked like no one had lived there for a while.”
“They could have been at school. And Ms. Burden, well, she left the house sometimes.”
“This was the beginning of August—there wasn’t any school.”
“They still could have been out.”
“Did they do that? Go places together?”
“Not together, but they’d go out at the same time. Sometimes. But you think they—what?—That they moved away?”
“I don’t know what I think. And you don’t either, if you’re honest.”
I remembered my own visit, how uncared-for the house had looked, and I started to feel worried. No, I had been worried all along, and trying to ignore it. I’d felt able to leave home because I’d convinced myself that they’d be safe, that they couldn’t tell Ms. Burden anything. Now I wondered if that was true, or even if it mattered. Ms. Burden had enjoyed her ingenious tortures, I knew that much. There was no reason to punish them, but she didn’t need a reason. She might be hurting them even now.
I had to rescue them, had to bring them here, if Maeve would allow it. But I didn’t know if I could, if I was able to defy Ms. Burden like that. She was their guardian, after all; she had all the force of the law on her side.
“All right,” I said. “I’ll go there myself.”
“Do you think that’s wise?”
“I’ll be careful. But I have to get them away from her.”
CHAPTER 16
THE HOUSE LOOKED more dilapidated than I remembered. It hadn’t been special in any way, just a few rooms holding a few people, but the sight made my heart turn over, as if I had lost something I could never get back.
I walked up to the front door. A few browning newspapers sat on the porch, along with a flyer for a pizza place. I rang the doorbell, feeling anxious. I hadn’t made any plans, though I had a vague idea that I might let Piper deal with Ms. Burden. No one answered.
I walked around to the backyard and got the key Philip had hidden, then unlocked the back door and went into the kitchen. It was very dim, the stove and refrigerator lurking like oversized animals in the darkness. I turned on the light but it was much weaker than I remembered, and I saw that only one bulb remained in the overhead lamp. The place smelled faintly of mold and unwashed clothes, and underlying that, even weaker, of rot.
I seemed to spend all my time breaking into places, I thought. Not just the houses Piper and I had gone into, but Ms. Burden’s old house, and Maeve’s, and now here. I could make a poem out of that, the outsider breaking in . . .
A hum started. I jumped, but it was only the refrigerator coming on. I told myself to relax.
Aside from that, the house was silent. I went through the dining room, the living room, the front hallway still hung with Ms. Burden’s Photoshopped portraits. Everything seemed dirtier, shabbier. A path had worn down the carpet from the dining room to the kitchen, and a stain that looked like blood spread across the couch. Probably it was just coffee or juice, though.
“Beatriz?” I said. The house seemed to swallow my voice. “Beatriz!” I said again, shooting her name into the silence like an emergency flare. “Rantha! Ramis!”
No one answered.
I climbed the stairs and looked into the bedroom I’d shared with Beatriz. Clothes and books and paper littered the floor, all of them hers, while my stuff had been shoved into the corners on my side. Dust lay over everything, making my eyes itch.
If they’d gone away, why hadn’t they taken their things? The pots and dishes in the kitchen, the television in the living room? I headed down the hallway to Philip’s bedroom, feeling apprehensive. Not Philip’s anymore, of course. Ms. Burden’s.
This was the messiest room of all. The sheets and blankets on the bed were jumbled up like laundry, and plates and cups lay spread out on the floor within arm’s reach, some still holding remnants of food and drink. Clothes were draped over the desk and computer in the corner.
The closet door was open. I peered inside carefully, ready to jump back if I heard noises. It looked the same as before, a few dresses hung up but the rest of her things on the floor.
Then I saw the filing cabinet, hiding behind her clothes. I pulled a drawer open and saw that she had been telling the truth for once: the cabinet had been Philip’s, with folders for insurance, mortgage, our school reports, his contract from the university. Near the back was that puzzling will, a copy of the one the lawyer had shown us. “In the event of my death I would like my good friend Katherine Burden . . .”
What would Philip say about our family now? I couldn’t bear to think about it. I moved on to the next drawer and took out the only folder there.
“Short Stories,” the label said. Had Philip written stories? Well, there was a lot I hadn’t known about him.
I opened it and saw a stack of paper, all more or less the same size. “Dear Kate Burden,” the first one said. “We’re sorry, but your story does not meet our needs at the present time.” It went on to thank her for submitting to their magazine, and it ended with the name of the editor sending the rejection slip. The rest were similar: all form letters, all of them rejecting her stories.
So this was what she had been doing with her time, writing stories and mailing them off to magazines. The New Yorker, Harper’s, Asimov’s Science Fiction, the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction . . .
Halfway through the stack I found a rejection slip from Asimov’s Science Fiction with a handwritten note. “This story shows some writing skill,” it said, “but the plot and some of its characters and settings seem derivative of Adela Madden’s novel Ivory Apples. As a writer, you should be working to develop your own voice, your own themes.”
It sounded as if Ms. Burden had been trying to write Ivory Apples over and over again. It seemed a waste, a terrible lack of imagination, and I almost felt sorry for her. No wonder she was looking for a muse.
Apart from that file, I hadn’t come across anything personal, or anything to say where she’d gone. I wanted to stay and look through the rest of her things, but I was feeling more and more anxious about her coming home, or hearing those noises. I hurried to clear the clothes off the computer and tried to boot it up, but it still needed a password.
I shut it down and left the house, taking the key with me.
In the weeks that followed I continued my search, tracking down people we’d known and asking them questions. Secretaries at both the grammar school and the middle school told me that Ms. Burden had said she was going to home-school my sisters, so they hadn’t returned in September. At Ms. Burden’s old house I found out that she had sold the place a while back, to a young couple. I asked them if they’d heard any noises from the basement, and although they looked at me strangely they said that no, they hadn’t.
Philip’s lawyer, Nate McLaren, hadn’t seen Ms. Burden since she’d signed the documents making her our guardian. He looked doubtful when I told him some of the things she’d done, but he did have one positive suggestion: I could go to the police.
I didn’t want to do that, though. I’d nearly been arrested a few times, and I was pretty sure the police had a long memory for those things. And if the police found my sisters, they’d just return them to Ms. Burden, as their guardian.
Esperanza told me that Ms. Burden had let her go over a year ago. Fortunately she’d found a new family to work for, one she liked a lot. “She was not agreeable, that Ms. Burden,” she said. “A hard woman.”
I still knew some people on the streets, and I offered them reward money for news of my sisters or Ms. Burden. I didn’t expect anything, though.
“I can’t be the only one who sees how horrible she is,” I said to Maeve at dinner. “Well, Esperanza didn’t like her, but she was there, she was a witness. But no one else believes me.”
“I think it was Piper who recognized her,” she said. “He knew from the beginning the harm she could do to him. Him and his people.”
Of course. I’d thought of that before, but I’d forgotten it after everything that had happened.
“You didn’t like her either,” I said. “So did Willa say something?”
“Oh, I didn’t need Willa. She tried to find me, to invade my privacy. I disliked her from the beginning.”
I was walking in downtown Eugene when a man in a dirty overcoat came up to me. I reached automatically for my purse; since the time I’d been homeless I could never turn down anyone asking for money.
“You were asking about Ms. Burden?” he said.
I gave him a five-dollar bill. The sleeves of his coat hung so far over his hands that he had to push them up to take it. “Yeah—do you know her?” I asked.
“I know someone. This way.”
I followed him through the crowded streets. His coat reached past his feet, and every so often he would trip on the hem and keep going.
He led me through an empty lot, a bus stop, the porch of a building where I used to shelter from the rain. I started wondering if he really knew anything or if he was just taking me somewhere to mug me. I had experience dealing with people like him, though, and my curiosity outweighed my fear.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Still looking for him,” he said.
A few blocks later he stopped in front of the Whole Foods. “There you are,” he said. A familiar-looking man leaned against the wall.
“Remember me?” the man asked.
I did. I’d called him Ted-or-Ned as a joke, and now I couldn’t remember his real name.
“You were in that restaurant, with Ms. Burden,” I said. “Helping her with something.”
“Yeah.” He laughed. “And you were one of those nosy kids, Aardvark or Guacamole or something.”
“Yeah, no one’s ever made fun of our names before. I’m Ivy.”
“Ivy, okay. I’m Ned. Sit down, sit down.”
The man in the overcoat left without saying goodbye, and I sat against the wall next to Ned. Now that I was looking at him I realized that he’d changed a great deal in the years since I’d seen him last. His clothes were torn and dirty and he smelled as if he hadn’t washed in weeks, but it was more than that—his face was sunburned, and he had that expression, half angry and half stunned, that I’d seen on so many people who lived on the streets.
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