Enchanted Ivy

by Sarah Beth Durst

  "Main campus is left," he said. "Just ordinary houses to the right. Very boring. Unless you're invited to a barbecue."

  "Barbecues are good," she said. Oh, God, what was she saying? Why was she talking about barbecues? "Unless you're a vegetarian, of course."

  "Of course," he agreed amiably.

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  She felt herself blushing. The first college boy who'd ever talked to her must think she was an idiot. She told herself it didn't matter what he thought of her, even if he was extremely cool-looking and had a dreamy voice and was a student at her dream school. ... "I'll go left," she said.

  "Good choice," he said. A small smile played on his lips. "You should take a tour."

  Her blush spread down her neck. She felt as if the words "high school student" were stamped on her forehead. "I'll be fine," she said. "Uh, thanks."

  "Look for someone walking backward, and that will be the Orange Key Tour."

  She opened her mouth to say no, thanks, she didn't have time for a tour right now, but then the name of the tour sank in: Orange Key Tour.

  He winked at her and then ambled off across the street.

  She stared after him for a moment and then shook herself. Clearly, he--whoever he was--had given her a clue.

  Filled with purpose, Lily headed left, down the street toward campus. She was swept up in a steady stream of alumni that flowed into and out of the clubs. As Grandpa had promised, she saw worse outfits than his blazer: orange jean jackets, black and orange trench coats, orange satin smoking jackets. She crossed the street within a flock of alums dressed in crossing-guard orange Hawaiian shirts.

  Slowing with the crowd, she began to wonder if she was wrong. The tour name could have been a coincidence, not a

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  clue. She could end up wandering around all weekend until her nerves snapped and she resorted to stealing car keys from drunken alums and toting them in a Santa Claus sack to Vineyard on Sunday. ... She climbed a set of steps that led to a brick archway. Above her, the arch was decorated with stone gargoyles. Little carvings of monkeys curled into rosettes. One side of the arch had a frieze carved into the shape of a tiger's head. Four stone monkeys crawled over the tiger's face.

  One of the monkeys turned its stone head and looked at her.

  Lily lost her footing on the steps. She caught herself on the railing, and an alum steadied her elbow. "Are you all right?" he asked.

  "Fine, thanks," she said automatically.

  The alum continued on.

  She was most definitely not fine. Clutching the railing, Lily stared at the monkey gargoyle. It didn't move.

  Of course it didn't move, she told herself. It's stone. She must have imagined it.

  Lily climbed the remaining steps and leaned against a wall inside the archway, out of sight of the gargoyles. A plaque on the wall labeled the building as 1879 Hall.

  Please, don't let me have a brain hiccup.

  She was genetically predisposed to them. She took a half dose of the same medication as Mom to prevent their onset. Until now, it had worked. But until now, she'd never had such

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  an important weekend. Her raised stress levels ... No, she thought. She wasn't going to let Mom's illness beat her. Not here and not now. Lily reached into her pocket and pulled out Mom's medicine vial. She uncorked it and chugged the syrupy silver liquid. It tickled her throat as she swallowed.

  Now she was safe from hallucinations and memory lapses and any behavior that would make a college admissions officer look at her as if she were less welcome than dog poo on an Oriental rug. She had double her usual dose in her. Or was it triple? Grandpa was always so careful with the dosage, and Mom's doses were twice the strength of hers. ...

  Oh, crap, she thought.

  Lily flipped open her cell phone and then stopped. Grandpa would not be happy if he found out she'd panicked five minutes into her test. She should wait to see if any abnormal symptoms developed before she called him.

  Pacing back and forth, she waited for signs of a seizure, heart attack, or frothing at the mouth. But aside from a ringing in her ears (which she decided was a distant radio), she felt fine.

  She needed to calm down. Yes, this was an incredible, once-in-a-lifetime, unexpected opportunity--and calling it that was not helping. Lily took a deep breath. She needed to treat this as if it were an outing with Mom. She had to remain calm, stay in control, and try not to do anything stupid.

  Like overdose on antipsychosis medication.

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  Stop it, she told herself. Done was done, and now she had to continue on. Her best bet for where to find an Orange Key Tour was the center of campus. Tucking both the empty medicine vial and her cell phone back into her pocket, she strode out of the arch without looking at the gargoyles.

  Almost immediately, the ringing in her ears worsened. It sounded like dissonant notes, blurring into a steady hum. It peaked as she reached a campus road hedged with rhododendron bushes and evergreens. She guessed she was hearing overlapping music from the various Reunion tents beyond the shrubbery. Grandpa had said that each Reunions class had a fenced-off area with its own swing band, country band, disco band, or DJ. That was a much more likely explanation than that the hum was a side effect of too much medication. She pushed aside worries about overdoses and brain hiccups and instead focused on her first view of the heart of campus.

  Ahead was a plaza with a soaring cathedral. To her right were Gothic classrooms draped in wisteria. To her left was an ivy-edged walk lined with lampposts. Following a campus road, she passed the cathedral plaza and headed for a wide green lawn flanked by twin, white marble, templelike buildings. This was the Princeton University that she'd been dying to see. Gothic turrets. Gleaming marble buildings. Massive oak and elm and sycamore trees. Lawns so green that the grass looked as if it had been combed and cut by a master barber rather than a lawn mower. And a flock

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  of tourists trailing like ducklings after a woman who was walking backward.

  Take that, Old Boys! she thought.

  Picking up her pace, Lily trotted across the green lawn toward the Orange Key Tour. She attached herself to the rear of the tour as prospective students, their families, and tourists circled an ivy-clad building. She heard the tour guide call it Nassau Hall, the oldest building at Princeton. Looking up at the yellow stone building with the white bell tower, Lily missed her grandfather. She was supposed to see the campus with him. She'd missed out on that moment.

  But if she found the Key before Saturday afternoon, she could still march with Grandpa in P-rade, the annual alumni parade through campus that Grandpa always talked about. She shouldn't feel bad; she hadn't missed all the warm, fuzzy bonding moments. And if she won acceptance to Princeton, that would, of course, be the ultimate moment.

  The tourists clustered in front of Nassau Hall. Green copper tigers flanked steps that led to tall blue doors. Lily inched closer to hear the guide, a ponytail-wearing student in a Princeton field hockey shirt, say, "After commencement, all the new graduates walk out FitzRandolph Gate."

  As the guide pointed behind them, the tour (Lily included) rotated en masse to gawk across the oak-speckled yard at the formal entrance to Princeton. Permanently open, the wrought-iron gate marked the line between campus and the banks, coffee shops, and Rolex stores of the town

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  of Princeton. It was crowned with the Princeton seal and framed by stone pillars, each with a stone eagle on top.

  Leaning against one of the pillars was the tiger-haired boy.

  Eyes widening, Lily stared at him. Maybe it wasn't the same boy. Maybe orange and black hair was a popular fashion statement on Reunions weekend.

  The tour guide continued to talk, "Legend has it that if you walk out that gate before graduation day, you won't graduate. Ask any student, and he'll say that's just a myth. But ask that same student to walk out that gate, and he'll say no way. We all walk out the side gates." She pointed to twin gates that flanked the ma
in gate. Made of the same spirals of black iron, they were crowned with lamppost-style lights instead of the Princeton seal. Lily barely glanced at them. Instead she watched the tiger-haired boy walk toward her between the oaks.

  He was definitely the same boy. Had he followed her? Why on earth would he?

  "I don't even like to come in the FitzRandolph Gate," the tour guide said. "What if I tripped and fell backward? So not worth the risk." Several tourists chuckled.

  As he came closer, Lily could see his eyes. She hadn't looked at his eyes before. She'd been too busy looking at his hair, her feet, and the sidewalk in the vain hope that he wouldn't notice how fiercely she'd been blushing. He had beautiful eyes. They were tawny, a brown so light that they

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  were nearly golden. All Lily could do was stare at them.

  "You found the tour," he said in his soft voice.

  "Yes," she said, still staring. His eyes were the same color as a lion's eyes. She'd never seen eyes like his. They were flecked with gold and bronze specks.

  "I'm Tye," he said.

  "Lily," she said.

  "Nice to meet you, Lily." He sounded as if he meant it. She liked the way he said her name, all drawn out. His voice was as warm and smooth as hot chocolate.

  In as sunny a voice as she could manage, she asked, "So ... are you stalking me?"

  "Pretty much," Tye said cheerfully. He flashed her a quintessential bad-boy smile. It made his eyes look like warm honey. She felt herself blushing for the second time. "I'm here to be your guard," he said. Before she could process that rather stunning statement, he added, "Tour's on the move."

  "Oh!" she said. She turned to see the flock of tourists disappear through a brownstone arch. She hesitated. If she chased after the tour, would he leave? "I should ... You're my guard?"

  "You're taking the test, right?" he asked. For the first time, he looked unsure of himself. He looked even cuter when he was confused than when he smiled, if that was possible.

  "You mean the Old--" She stopped herself before she said "Old Boys." They might be the Old Boys' Network, but she bet they wouldn't appreciate being called that. "Yes, that's me.

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  I mean, I'm taking it." God, could she sound any more like an idiot? Just because he had nice eyes didn't mean she had to lose all grip on the English language. "I should catch that tour."

  "Good idea," he said, and he walked with her to the arch, through an ivy-choked courtyard, and out under a second arch. Distracted by the fact that he was accompanying her, she nearly plowed into the back of a middle-aged woman who was pointing a camera at an array of Gothic buildings across the plaza. Lily skidded to a stop mere inches away.

  "Ahead and to your left is Firestone Library," the tour guide was saying to the flock, "and ahead and to your right is the University Chapel. We just passed through the courtyard of East Pyne, the Foreign Language Department. If I could draw your attention to the top of the East Pyne arch ..." She pointed, and everyone rotated to view the arch.

  At the top of the brownstone archway was a gargoyle shaped like the face of a blindfolded woman. Stunted arms jutted out under her chin to hold open a stone book. Every tourist aimed a camera up at the gargoyle.

  "So ... I'm on the right track to find the Key?" Lily asked Tye. She leaned closer to him so that the tourists wouldn't overhear. This close, she breathed in his scent. He smelled like a rain forest, or like the flower shop after Mom had misted all the plants. In his jeans and black T-shirt, he hadn't seemed like the scented-aftershave type of guy.

  He flashed his lopsided smile. "Depends on what you want to open."

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  Enigmatic much? "Thank you, Cheshire Cat." Maybe he didn't understand that her whole future rested on this.

  His smile vanished, and he self-consciously ran his hand through his tiger-striped hair. "What do you mean by that?"

  Who dyed their hair crazy colors and then acted shy about it? Mom never flinched at the odd looks she got. Of course, that was Mom, queen of getting odd looks. "That wasn't a hair comment," Lily said. "I like your hair."

  His grin returned. "Thanks."

  She wondered if he thought she was flirting.

  The tour guide continued. "Some of the campus gargoyles, like the Literate Ape on Dillon Gym, are humorous. Some are more classically inspired, like the Chained Dragon, which we'll see in just a moment on the University Chapel. Others represent the university experience, like this perennial favorite here, the Unseeing Reader, who symbolizes opening the eyes of students."

  Keeping her voice low, Lily asked Tye, "Why do I need a guard?" She was on a campus tour at a suburban school, not wandering alone in the inner city. "Are you supposed to protect me against vicious squirrels and roving gangs of prefrosh?"

  "Something like that," he said.

  The tour guide was talking about a bulldog (Yale's mascot) carved into a drainpipe on the chapel, supposedly a joke from the architect, a Yale graduate. "Everywhere you look on the Princeton campus, you'll find treasures like these," the

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  guide said. "Some call our gargoyles the 'true professors of Princeton.'"

  Lily winced. Okay, that was cheesy. She hung back as the tour proceeded on to the chapel. "Am I really supposed to be on this tour?" she whispered to Tye. "She seems as likely to say something useful as a gargoyle." Lily nodded up at the Unseeing Reader.

  "I wouldn't be so sure of that." His golden eyes twinkled at her. "You never know what a gargoyle might say." He waved up at the gargoyle as if the Unseeing Reader were an old friend that he always greeted.

  High up on the arch, the Unseeing Reader's stone fingers twitched.

  Lily felt blood drain from her face. It had to have been a flicker of light, a cloud crossing the sun, even though the sky was blemish-free blue. "Did you see--" She stopped. She didn't want him to think she was a lunatic or, worse, to report back to the Old Boys that she had her mother's problems.

  Tye was watching her with an unreadable expression.

  "Never mind," she said. Clasping her shaking hands together behind her back, Lily willed herself to stay calm. She'd taken a triple dosage. She might have a seizure or a heart attack, but she could not have a brain hiccup.

  The fingers twitched again.

  "Oh, crap," she said.

  She couldn't pretend she hadn't seen that. Out of the

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  corner of her eye, she glanced at Tye. He was still watching her, his tawny eyes intense.

  Above, the gargoyle spread her fingers. A shard of stone slipped between them and plummeted toward the plaza. Without thinking, Lily stretched out her hands. The stone landed neatly on her palms. She stared at it. It didn't feel like a hallucination.

  "What does it say?" Tye asked.

  Her head shot up. "How do you know it says anything?" She didn't wait for him to answer. "The Old Boys ... Vineyard Club ... they rigged the gargoyle," she said flatly. She waved the stone shard in the air. "This is a clue. And you knew it was and let me think I was ..." Instead of finishing the sentence, she swatted his arm. Her fingers brushed against his bare skin. She felt tiny static shocks dance on her fingertips.

  His eyes widened, and he reached out as quick as a cat and caught her hand. He held it for a second, and she felt prickles run up and down her arm. "Who are you?" he demanded.

  "Nobody," she said. "I'm Lily. Lily Carter."

  He was staring at her with a gaze so piercing that she felt yet another blush rise up over her neck and face. A second later, he dropped her hand and blushed too. "Sorry," he said. He seemed at a loss for words. She flexed her fingers. Strange, she thought. Her hand felt tingly. "You, uh, you think the 'Old Boys' are controlling the gargoyle?" he asked.

  "Puppet or robot." She didn't care which, so long as it wasn't a hallucination. Lily studied the shard, a flat rectangle.

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  Carved on one side were numbers and letters: 921.45 Wil. She showed it to Tye.

  "Cryptic," he commented.r />
  "It could be a date, except the punctuation isn't quite right," she said. "And what about 'Wil'? What does that mean?"

  "Abbreviation?" he suggested. "Acronym?"

  "Research time," she said. She was a stone's throw from the university library. The prospect of winnowing through that much information was daunting, but the answer had to be in there somewhere. It couldn't be a coincidence that she'd received this clue so close to--

  Oh.

  Of course.

  "It's a book catalog number," Lily said. Looking up at the Unseeing Reader, she asked, "I'm right, aren't I?"

  The gargoyle didn't answer.

  Love at first sight, Lily thought as she and Tye approached Firestone Library. First, it was beautiful, all gray stone and turrets. But second and even better, it was lopsided. It had a single off-center tower that looked as if someone had stolen half of Notre Dame Cathedral and then stuck it on top of the library without measuring first. She loved it. It was grand and quirky at the same time, and it was utterly different from her home library. Not that she didn't love that library too. Her home library was a drab hunk of concrete from the 39seventies, but it was also her first-choice refuge whenever Mom was acting too "artistic" to handle. Lily typically holed up in the nonfiction section. She liked to thumb through the books and imagine what she would do once her life was her own ... if it was ever her own.

  If Princeton said yes, she would have her own life. Since this was Grandpa's alma mater, she was allowed to apply here, even though coming here would mean leaving home. (Princeton was too far from Philly for an easy commute.) All of the other colleges on the Grandpa-approved list were in or just outside Philadelphia. If she went to one of them, she'd live at home and commute to class. Mom and the flower shop would continue to dominate her world, and nothing would change. Passing this test was the key to her future.