by Sakurapu
Her shoe caught the uneven sidewalk and her balance toppled, sending her tumbling into the street. Instinctively she held the bolt of cloth up, stretched before her as a wide lake of pothole water rose to meet her. She landed with an "Oof!" and an "Ouch!" until the breath pushed from her lungs as her stomach and ribs met the broken pavement.
"Hey! Ivy!"
She looked up at the bolt of cloth still held out of danger as her elbows crashed to the street. "Ow . . ."
Dred stooped beside her, then straddled her back to pull her up in a graceless motion. "You didn't even try to catch yourself?"
She wheezed out the last of the air in her lungs and pulled the bolt clumsily to her side as she was tugged up. ". . . didn't want . . . to get it . . . wet."
He straightened her once she was on her feet and watched as she brushed the wet, crumbled pavement from her jacket. "It's all wrapped up, Ivy. It wouldn't have got wet. Or dirty."
"I think it's okay."
She coughed and inspected the bolt for damage. The plastic was splashed, but that was about it. She inhaled in a wheezy rattle and tried to get her breath back. "Some bracing."
"Sorry. Let's get out of the road." He took her elbow.
She yelped at his touch, flinching as an ugly red abrade came into contact. The edge of pothole had scraped a hole right through her thin jacket, leaving a reddening abrasion on her elbow. She stepped away, only to have a shooting pain lace up her ankle. "Ow!"
This time she let him catch her waist as she lost her balance. She gripped the bolt of cloth tight to her chest, standing on one foot. "My ankle. I think . . . I twisted it."
He locked his arm tighter around her waist and nearly lifted her onto the grassy curbside. "We'll go inside and you can sit down."
"Here?" She looked up at the cobble path leading to Brylinden Hall. "We can't just knock on a stranger's door. Not this stranger." She looked far up at the balconied and gabled house that seemed to watch their hobbling approach. "Not this house."
"It's okay."
"Do you know them?" She leaned on him as his arm took her waist, biting her lip against the pain crippling her ankle.
"Yeah."
"How?"
They managed the first step of the stone porch spreading before the Hall. It was laden with vines and tangled, dying foliage. Only a muted light came from one heavy drape.
"I live here."
Ivy almost fell over as she looked up at him. "You do? But no one lives here." She had no basis for that, but she always assumed it was some sort of house-turned-museum that was now half-abandoned. She rarely seen lights on inside it at night.
"Yeah. Come on."
They shuffled across the stone porch and he turned them to the left to a single door. It was dark gray, appearing like a gaping hole in the poor light shadowing that side of the house.
"This is better than the front doors," he said, pausing them to lift the brass latch handle and push the thick door open. "Got steps from the front. This'll take us right to the third parlor."
"Third parlor?" She let him usher her into the hollow of doorway that opened before them. "How many parlors are there?"
"Six. Maybe more. Six, officially, in use." He closed the door behind them and for a moment, inky black engulfed them.
At last . . . a chill breeze seemed to whisper as Ivy stood wide-eyed, waiting for her vision to adjust to the dark.
"What's that?" she said, standing rigid as he prompted her to move.
"Just old house sounds. This door does that."
His arm was around her again, moving her forward, seeming to glide them in a disembodied float until he turned them into a room at their left.
A small parlor opened, swathed in a burgundy color from two Tiffany lamps resting on matching ornate side tables flanking a settee in rose damask upholstery. Dred eased her to the seat.
"Am . . . Are you sure I can sit here?" She sat primly, as if the chair would be taxed by her weight.
"'Course. It's a chair, right?" He grinned at her, then patted the extra seat beside her. "Set down your roll of cloth and we'll look at your ankle."
Ivy smiled timidly, against her will, almost; something in his grin seemed to pull the smile right out of her. "Okay."
He knelt before her and set his textbook on the red and cream Oriental rug. "Does it hurt much?"
She caught her breath as he took her ankle in one hand and carefully slipped off her laceless sneakers. "A little."
He set the shoe aside and felt up her ankle.
She recoiled at the warm swelling on the outside of her ankle when his fingers probed the area. "It's sore there."
He lowered her foot to the rug and sat back on his heels. "I'll get some ice."
"Don't leave me here." The words were out of her mouth before she could think.
He was already on his feet and heading to the far side of the room, opposite from the short hallway they had entered by. "I'll be right back. Just a sec."
She bit back any more words, chiding herself. He disappeared out the arched doorway to a better-lit hallway beyond. She sighed, trying to ignore the growing pain in her ankle. The room was papered in cream and soft red murals depicting a park with an Oriental gazebo and lazy river and young children rolling a hoop with a stick, seeming from a hundred years or more ago. There was a matching settee and lamp tables with lace-shaded and jewel-strung lamps across from her at the wall, but they weren't lit. She let herself sit back a few inches, then tucked her book bag behind her for support.
A tall, white marble fireplace was to her left and a hump-backed sofa in off-white to her right against the wall. Above it hung an ornate frame of mosaic glass. Four candles, two on each side, stood in gilt holders, but they were unlit. She frowned, expecting a mirror rather than cut and fitted colored glass.
She hummed nervously, holding her hands tight together in her lap.
". . . hell do you think you're doing?" a hushed male voice drifted to her.
Ivy sat straighter, straining to hear.
"Helping." It was Dred's voice, she thought, barely above a whisper.
There was a shushed flurry of the first voice, too rushed and low with base for her to hear. Dred began to speak again, but a sudden sweep of music from overhead drowned him out. The single tone of a violin drifted to the parlor where Ivy sat, and then the tone turned into a blend of strings, all following the same notes. It was a mid-tempo melody, dissolving into a mournful sound that nearly brought Ivy to her feet.
". . . screw this up," came the first male voice again.
Ivy could hear no more of the hushed voices over the violin's haunting melody, but she sat perfectly still, hoping for more.
Dred appeared at the arched doorway, a cold pack in his hand. "This should help."
"Who was that?" she asked as he stooped before her and draped the ice pack over her swollen ankle. At first the cold and weight touched off pain through her sock, but then it abated into a soothing numbness.
"No one." He didn't look at her.
"I don't want to be in the way, Dred."
He glanced up at her, one hand still balancing the pack at her ankle. "You're not. It's okay, Ivy."
Ivy . . . a breeze seemed to drift through the room.
She shivered. "You live here? With these weird drafts?"
"Old houses have weird noises. That's all." He stood up and sat beside her on the settee, careful to position the bolt of cloth between them without squishing it.
"Who were you talking to?"
His dark eyes wavered, something flitting over them as he held her inquisitive stare. "Just . . . others that live here."
"Your family?" she said hopefully.
"Not quite."
"Then who? Do you really live here?" She pulled her foot back under her better, preparing for flight.
"It's an interim house," Maeve's voice said from the doorway.
Ivy yelped and looked to the upperclassman standing under the archway. "You, you live here, too?"
"Dred is kind of between residences right now," Maeve said, pinpointing him with a sharp glare. "He can stay here, until his paperwork arrives."
Ivy glanced to the boy beside her with new sympathy. "Oh, you're a . . . foster?"
A dark look came to his face, but he shrugged. "I guess."
"How's your foot, Ivy?" Maeve crossed the room to the settee. "Feeling better?"
"Yes, it's numb now." She tried to read Maeve's face, but got only a neutral etiquette. "I didn't mean to intrude."
"You're not." A genuine smile broke across Maeve's lips. "The front porch has a lot of old floorboards, so it's not the best route for a sprained ankle. Good thing you used the side entrance," she said, giving Dred a brief glimpse. "Be sure to use the east one on your way out."
"Oh, yeah," Dred said with a sigh.
"Better yet," Maeve said, smiling at Ivy, "I'll drive Ivy home."
Chapter Three
There was a hole in Ivy's memories the next day as she ate lunch outside the high school with Lornie. She wasn't aware of it at first, preoccupied with a test she'd forgotten to study for and a new tune running along her thoughts, but slowly she realized she was limping, slightly. Some of her memories were drifting back, but there were still pockets of lost time.
"How can you not remember falling?" Lornie asked for the fifth time that lunch. She pushed a strand of red hair from her mouth as the afternoon breeze sent it into her bite of lunch-lady spaghetti. "You've still got the bruise on your ankle."
Ivy angled her foot out from the concrete bench that encircled the round lunch table in segments. Sure enough, a large blue bruise was peeking at her from her short socks. She hitched up the pink sock. "Slouch socks really live up to their name." She popped another sweet potato fry into her mouth. "Maybe I hit my head. I don't know. After the shop, it's like fog in my head; I know Dred went with us, but after that . . . not so much." She read the look crossing her friend's face. "Nothing happened, Lornie."
Lornie raised an eyebrow. "I don't know. He's kinda hung up on you."
As if his name conjured him, Dred draped into the second half of Ivy's third of bench segment. "Hey, babe. How ya feeling?"
Ivy worked up a less confused smile. "Oh, fine. And you?"
He slid a grin at Lornie, then propped his elbow on the table, his gaze lingering on Ivy's lips. "A little bruised, are you?"
Ivy fought down a blush. "I just twisted my ankle, that's all, Dredge."
"Eh, Dred, sweetheart." He swiped a fry from the puddle of ketchup on her Styrofoam plate. "Nice. Eating outside."
"I'm sure Canada has an outside." Ivy frowned down his hand that went for another fry. "Maybe even more than we do."
He set a mangled paper lunchbag on the table. "Maybe." He opened the bag and pulled out a Tupperware bowl of soup. He opened it and snagged a spare plastic spoon from the center of the table. "Just checking."
She watched him ladle a spoonful of mostly noodles and carrots into his mouth. "You brought soup?"
"Mhm."
Another memory sparked into her mind. "Hey, you didn't tell me you lived with Maeve Gretels. How so?"
He choked down a wide egg noodle. "You know, an interim thing. I try to forget it."
"That's got to be awkward." Lornie looked between them as Dred nodded, intent on his soup. She leaned to Ivy. "What's that tune you were humming?"
Ivy picked up on the thread of thought. "I think it was on the radio last night." She watched Dred take a large bite of noodles. "Maeve's radio, I guess."
A noodle slapped Dred's lip as he sucked it in, along with too much air that led to a coughing fit.
A hand pounded on Dred's hunched back, and Ivy and Lornie both looked up at Vohn.
"Pace yourself, boy." Vohn glanced to the girls, and then left, dissolving into the crowd of tables and students standing while eating and chatting.
A low growl came from Dred as he turned to watch the older boy leave, eyes narrowing as he wiped a stray noodle off his mouth.
"He's grumbly all the time," Lornie said, her attention back on her spaghetti, coiling the noodles around the spork's shallow tines. "Not just you."
"I know." Dred belched and withdrew an energy drink from the paper bag.
"How do you know?" Ivy asked. She ate the sweet potato fries quicker, then pushed a few toward him. "Go ahead."
"Nah, I shoulda asked." He swiped two. "He looks the type, ya know? Uptight. Know it all. Too good."
Lornie sent a glance in the direction Vohn had gone. "I'm glad Camille's over him. Too much legwork."
Ivy nodded, finishing off her turkey burger. High school food was a step up from middle school fare and even six weeks into the school year, she'd sampled almost the entire menu. She watched Dred hold the Tupperware up to his mouth and slide out every last noodle and broken carrot with the remaining broth. Never had home-cooked soup, usually reserved—in her mind—for colds and flu season, looked so unappealing. "Good?"
He nodded, swallowing the too large gulp of soup. "Berella's cooking, but a gypsy's recipe."
"What?" Ivy and Lornie asked in unison.
Dred composed himself after a long belch. "You know, taste of home and all that."
Lornie nodded. "Canadian gypsies. Right." Her hand shot out and she clutched Ivy's wrist as she reached for her last fry. "That reminds me; I gotta work my uncle's stand at the Fest this weekend. Come with me?" Her eyes pleaded desperately. "Save me? Please?"
Ivy's mind sifted through Lornie's menagerie of relatives. Every festival brought out her friend's more colorful family in the form of carnival stands and booths. "What kind of stand?"
"Tie-dye. Shirts, hoodies, dresses. Cool stuff." Lornie smiled hopefully.
Ivy sighed in relief. "Yeah, I guess. Probably."
"Because I know the Marvins are all out of town this weekend." Lornie nodded. "I checked for play practice."
Dred's head snapped to Ivy. "You're in a play?"
"No. Lornie is." Ivy jiggled the orange juice in her bottle. "Romeo and Juliet, a la Ms. Decker style."
He nodded, stretching his legs under the table, clipping both girls' knees. "Who's Decker?"
"Our new drama department instructor." Lornie warmed to the name. "She's even letting freshmen tryout this year. No one else has, but she did."
Ivy read the eagerness Lornie tried to squelch in her face. "Lornie's got the lead role understudy."
Lornie nodded, smiling. "Just found out last night."
Dred nodded. "Yeah? Backup Julia?"
A nervous giggle possessed Lornie for a full minute. "Yes," she finally said. "But just backup. But it's still fun. And I love the music this time."
"A musical?" Dred glanced from Lornie to Ivy. "Are you in it? At all?"
"No. I don't sing, or dance, or act." There was little regret in Ivy's voice. "But I like to watch, even the rehearsals."
"You're coming tonight, right? It's our first full dress rehearsal for Act Three, with Guilty."
"Who's guilty?" Dred wadded up his paper bag, with the Tupperware still in it. He swore and reopened the bag and withdrew the plastic bowl and lid.
"Ms. Decker's using contemporary music for some of the scenes," Lornie said as the class period bell rang and drowned out half her words. She and Ivy stood up and collected their lunch trays. "You do have Marina and the Diamonds in Canada, don't you?"
"Yeah, sure," he said automatically.
"I'll be there," Ivy said. "I've got some basting to do first, but that's it."
"You need an escort?" Dred was at Ivy's hip as she climbed out from the bench and steadied her tray.
"It's only practice, not the real play," Lornie breathed, slipping by them.
"Well, it's not open to the public," Ivy began.
"But not closed, right?" He stayed at her side as they funneled into the doors propped open at the outdoor eating area.
Something in his eyes found a place deep inside Ivy that made her merely nod. "But I don't need an escort."
&n
bsp; Ivy distinctly recalled telling Dred that last part several more times over the next few hours of classes that afternoon, but there he was again, at her side as they entered the school's enormous Arts Center just as evening fell. It was an early evening, with the days getting shorter, but past afternoon.
"Wow, this is nice," he said in the hushed, carpeted corridor as they made their way through the art and music rooms.
"Yes, the best tax dollars at work, so my dad says." She dodged his elbow that almost caught her chest—again—as they rounded a corner in the darkened Center. "We've got a pool on the lower side, across the building, but no swim team yet."
"You a good swimmer?"
She watched his gaze sweep up and down her body. She pulled her jacket tighter. "No. I don't swim much."
"What do you do? No swimming, no acting. Play an instrument?"
"Needlework. What do you do, Dred? Just interrogate everyone the moment you meet them?" She checked her agitation, blaming most of it on her sore ankle.
"Needlework? Like, sewing?"
"Yes, like sewing. I thought the fabric shop would have been a dead giveaway."
They took the next turn of hallway and the air changed to a lighter, more electrified feel. An industrial sound, like awkward woodwinds and reeds played by a mechanized autoplayer, went through the beginning notes from Guilty.
"No!" Mr. Munsun's baritone boomed out. "More succinct, keep the staccato!"
The instruments rambled to a stop. A baton tapped, and then the music began again. This time, every note was aligned and distinct, like pistons in a steam bath.
Ivy smiled at the sound. "I wish I had a talent like that. Music, or singing."
"Thought you liked pins and needles." He put a hand to the door when she paused them. "Here?"
She glanced down the hallway to their right. No one was around. "I guess we're a little early. It's an open rehearsal but not public."
"What's the difference?"
She watched him push the door open without waiting for her reply. They looked into the blackness beyond that felt as deep as the sixteen rows of seats that led down to the orchestra pit. The music grew louder, now joined by more of the orchestra.
