Now a Major Motion Picture

by Cori McCarthy

  Chills and fever pounded her body until her Birth Rite responded. White flame writhed to life inside her, yet it was not her lightning. It was white fire, quavering and fearful; it had no strength, only pain. It was Evyn.

  Somehow.

  From a great distance, her brother was screaming through her dreams.

  Goose bumps ran from the back of my neck to my arms. I glanced at the countdown clock. Nine minutes left. Where was Nolan? Had Ryder given me the wrong scene?

  Sevyn held on to the ancient tree, fever dreaming a black cave. Through a whisper of light, she looked to her hands, but they were not hers; they were frail, lithe, entirely unused. Evyn’s hands.

  Evyn?

  His head jerked. It was true then; she was inside her twin, and he could hear her. How was this possible? “Sister?”

  I am here, Evyn. I can see through your eyes.

  “Can you save me?” Urgency cramped his voice, but before she could respond, he added, “They come now. Save me, Sister!”

  Through Evyn’s eyes, a dim light grew brighter as it approached. It was not a flame, but an orb of fiery essence. Sevyn recognized it as the power Evyn had been learning to summon on Cerul before his capture at the waterfall. A dark creature held the orb, and its slinking approach filled her with dread that was magnified by Evyn’s shaking. Where are you, Brother? You have to tell me!

  “Thornbred,” Evyn whispered, his voice rattling the darkness.

  The creature swept a silencing claw across Evyn’s face before pulling his head back by his hair. Sevyn’s brother gave the smallest cry as the creature bit down on his neck, taking long, sucking swallows of Evyn’s blood.

  I cried out and threw the book at the padded wall. It’s binding split and pages fell out. “You’ve got to be kidding me!” Stupid goddamn book. Stupid M. E. Goddamn Thorne. I pulled my hair over my face and yelled—anything to escape the mental image of Moss gnawing on Ryder’s neck.

  “It’s just Julian acting with his tennis ball on a stick,” I chanted several times before I remembered the flashing red light. My outburst had been professionally recorded.

  And Conor was back, sitting in his booth and watching through the glass. He flipped the switch when our eyes connected. “You okay, Iris?”

  I shook my head.

  “Don’t feel bad. You’re not the first person to get in there and freeze up.”

  “How much was this session?” I asked. “Was it expensive?”

  “You don’t want to know the answer to that, girl.” He gave me a small smile. “Do you want to play back what we recorded?”

  I shook my head again, my hair falling in my eyes. This was bad. I’d taken money from Elementia’s exhausted budget. Had this come straight out of Cate’s wallet? “Conor? I want to pay for the hours.” I packed Annie in her case, swept the remains of Ryder’s book into my bag, and met Conor in the booth. I handed over my dad’s “Only for Emergencies” Visa and didn’t look at the total when I signed. Dad would be furious; he’d rip me apart for this. And Cate wouldn’t have a song for Eamon’s big scene.

  Worst of all, I now had definitive, expensive proof.

  I was not a songwriter.

  IRIS & RYDER

  Film: Elementia

  Director: Cate Collins

  On Location: Day 6

  Killykeen Forest Park, Ireland

  Filming Notes:

  Magic hour shoot—NOLAN and SEVYN’s first scene together.

  DOWNWARD DOG AND OTHER MISERIES

  I woke up early the next morning, finally over my jet lag. Laundry was strewn all over the trailer, and Ryder had taped up our film sides like a record of our attendance. I fixed his copy of the Elementia trilogy and placed it beside him. He was sleeping like a baby angel, and I had to get out of there before he woke up.

  Because then I’d have to tell him I’d choked.

  I threw on my running clothes and went for a jog beside the lake. The sun came up with a dazzle of yellow light, the water sparkling and reminding me of Shoshanna and Eamon giggling like flirt monsters on that rowboat. I tried to listen to some raging Florence, but I wasn’t feeling it. Vance Joy hit the spot instead, his moody Australian voice highlighting how much I wasn’t looking forward to this day. “Fire and Flood” cut off as my phone started ringing. My dad’s picture filled the screen, the image true to life: him scowling at his laptop.

  I swear I could sense how mad he was on the other side of the Atlantic. The credit card. Definitely one for voice mail. I stood there for four minutes, waiting for the message notification. When my phone buzzed, dread came with it. I hit play.

  “I got a call from Visa to verify a one thousand euro purchase at a recording studio in Dublin? You better explain fast, although I can’t imagine a viable excuse. This is coming out of your allowance.” There was an audible sigh-pause. “I know you’re mad I’m not coming to take over with Ryder, but if you pull any more of this Jaded Iris crap, I’ll cut off the card.”

  The message ended, and I screamed, “You probably forgot that much money in your dinner jacket, you cheap jerk!”

  My voice echoed around the lake, and in the quiet aftermath, someone cleared their throat. Shoshanna was doing yoga on a mat barely a stone’s throw away. I’d been seriously out of it not to notice her.

  “So,” she said, balanced in warrior two. “Things aren’t going well for you either?”

  I scowled. Did she have any idea how much her gorgeous, superior presence was trashing my feelings for Eamon? “Why are you doing yoga out in the open?” I snapped. “Aren’t you worried creepers might be watching you? Anyone could walk by.”

  “Maybe I was hoping someone would walk by,” she said. In my silence, she added, “Not you, Iris. But if you’re going to stand there, you might as well join me.”

  I dropped into downward dog beside her, wondering if Cate had put her up to this. Bonding exercises, Julian had called it. I followed her sun salutation; it was different than the one I did in gym, but similar enough that I didn’t seem like a total elephant doing karate.

  “That was my dad,” I finally said when I couldn’t stand the silence. “Threatening me from a few thousand miles away. He’s a—”

  “Cheap jerk? I know his kind.” There was something unflinching in Shoshanna that made me want to be like her. To talk the way she talked. She wasn’t worried about everyone liking her all the time, and it was sort of breathtaking. We moved into warrior two, and she squinted at me. “You’re a virgin, aren’t you?”

  “What?” I fell out of the move, twisting my knee.

  “You’ve got no awareness in your hips. It’s obvious.”

  “Why,” I busted out, “does everyone think it’s okay to pick on me?” I took back all internal compliments about Shoshanna Reyes. She was a say-anything freak. “So what if I’m a virgin? That’s not illegal, is it?”

  She smiled triumphantly, like she had during our very first conversation. “Oh, it’s legal. And explains a lot.” She kept sun-saluting, and I kept up purely out of aggravation.

  “I know you get kicks out of making people squirm, but no virgin shaming.”

  “Hey, I mean no offense,” she said. “This is part of how I understand people. How I handle my roles. I figure out the character’s experience, sexuality range, where they are on the gender spectrum. You’ve been tricky, so I’ve been applying work tactics. Seriously, no offense.”

  Now I felt like I had to apologize for going slightly nuclear. “My school friends give me crap about this back at home. I’m a little hot-wired on the subject.”

  “What are school friends?”

  While I was used to using that term, no one had ever repeated it back before. “They’re my friends, but we don’t hang outside of school. I have to watch Ryder.”

  “That’s sad, Iris Thorne.”

  “The longer I�
�m in Ireland, the more I realize this,” I muttered. “Don’t tell Eamon I’m… I mean, don’t tell anyone.”

  “Oh, Eamon is a virgin too. Have you seen that boy dance? I tried to get him to wiggle his lower body last night. Cement.”

  My face steamed in my forward fold. “You guys have fun last night?”

  “I’m not hooking up with Eamon. Feel free to shove that card back in the deck.” Shoshanna switched to plank, her long, thick hair tied up in an unruly braid that made mine look manageable by comparison. Also, her arm muscles were stunning. “I have zero interest in him, and I’m rarely into pork swords.”

  I was stuck on her statement of I’m not hooking up with Eamon. Did that mean I still had a shot? No way. Eamon was getting one-on-one time with Shoshanna. Even if she didn’t like him, he was bound to like her. I didn’t stand a chance.

  Stop ranking women.

  I fell out of my plank, and Shoshanna looked at me weird. “I think I just heard Cate Collin’s voice in my head.”

  Shoshanna smirked. “She has presence, doesn’t she? Although don’t go all black and white on her little feminism pep talks. She’s put up with some serious gender bullshit, but that’s one experience, not every woman’s experience.”

  “Okay…” I was in over my head. Again.

  “Also, you’re panting weird,” she said. “It’s throwing off my rhythm.”

  “Sorry.” I glanced at Shoshanna’s shoulder and noticed a bit of ink hitherto hidden by her clothes. “Is that… Do you have a tattoo of Rosie the Riveter?”

  “No.”

  “It is!”

  “You are epically bad at noticing things outside of yourself.” Shoshanna twisted to show off her shoulder tattoo.

  “Whoa.” I put my back knee down in runner’s lunge and leaned in for a closer look. “Is that Dr. Jillian Holtzmann from Ghostbusters?”

  “Of course it is.”

  “What do you mean ‘of course it is’? How many people on this planet have Jillian Holtzmann tattoos?” I was trying to tease her, to connect on some basic level even if it was silly. “Oh God, you’re a nerd after all! A sneaky, campy nerd.”

  “No, Iris. I’m queer. And that’s a big fucking deal in this business. Do you know how many roles I’ve lost because the casting director has flat-out said, ‘We don’t think you can act straight enough’? And that’s after getting over the bar of those who see my Filipino last name and automatically trash my résumé. I’ve got to get this role right. My career depends on it.”

  I had no clue what to say. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry. Just know that I exist. For every mighty, whitey Cate Collins, there’s someone like me, winning the intersectional bingo and all the bullshit that goes with it. Not white enough for some roles, not dark enough for others.” Shoshanna’s voice splintered into a long sigh. “Sorry. I shouldn’t be unloading on you. There’s a nightmare of a reporter going around set. She likes to push buttons. Make sure you keep your distance.”

  “Yeah, Julian warned me too.”

  We switched to downward dog. I thought Shoshanna might be ready for silence, but no.

  “Did you record that song for Cate?”

  Boom.

  “Um, no.” I’d finally said it. The truth wasn’t too hard, but then, Shoshanna wasn’t one of the people I was afraid to tell.

  “Cate’s going to be pissed.”

  “The poem was no good,” I countered.

  “You’re not wrong. This fantasy crap gets so convoluted.”

  “Finally someone who agrees with me.” The compliment strategy worked on my school friends, but Shoshanna’s frown peeked under her arm, unfooled as ever.

  “You’re the one who insists no one gets you, Iris. I’ll always be real with you. All you’ve got to do is see me for me, deal?”

  Before I could answer, a laughing Ryder scrambled underneath my downward dog, blocking any way out of the position. “Hey, giggle hound, get out from under me!”

  Eamon was there too—underneath Shoshanna’s dog. He tried to tease her, but she gave him a short warning before kneeing him in the stomach and standing up.

  “Ryder, move!” He crawled out from under me, but before I could come down, Eamon took his place. “Seriously? My arms are about to give out.”

  “So fall on me, then,” he said, his blue eyes daring. Christ. My shoulders shook, my legs ached, and yet I was so happy to see him. We smiled at each other while a shadow fell over us.

  “Don’t step on his face,” Shoshanna warned. “He has to act tonight.”

  Her shadow moved on, and Ryder ran off down the shoreline. I was still in the longest downward dog of all time. “They’re going to film your scene tonight?”

  “Yes, we’re going to do it. I’m going to do it.” He looked adorable when he was talking himself into something. His forehead scrunched and his lips pouted. “Iris, you’re shaking and your face is all red. You should come down.” He tickled my ribs, and I flattened him.

  Not a graceful move about it.

  He oofed out all his air, and I tried not to mangle his face. And then I went from embarrassed to red hot because we were all tangled on the soft grass beside the most gorgeous green lake in Ireland, the orange sun climbing. I thought he might kiss me again, and I assessed my lips and breath. Not good. Stupid yoga dry mouth.

  Instead of kissing, though, he sat up on crossed legs and pulled me close. My back was pressed to his chest, and his arms wrapped around me, which was no small part stunning. “I missed you yesterday,” he said into my hair, his breath tickling my neck.

  He missed me. That was a real feeling, wasn’t it?

  This was real.

  “How did it go?” he asked.

  I closed my eyes, reality popping any semblance of happiness. What I wouldn’t have given to stay in his tight hold and tell him that I’d recorded the song as planned, that his faith in me hadn’t been foolish. “I couldn’t do it,” I said slowly. “There’s no song for your scene. I’m sorry.”

  His arms loosened. He leaned away. “These things happen.”

  These things happen?

  I touched his hand, tried to slip my fingers in between his, but he wasn’t budging. Was he that disappointed? “I’m sorry,” I said again, flatter this time. “I’m not M. E. Thorne.”

  “I know that, Iris. We all know that. No one is asking you to be.”

  “Yeah right.” My anger felt weird, held in check by our sweetheart’s position before the epic scenery. All of a sudden, we felt like a joke—just like fantasy. One minute it was poetic, wild, true. The next? Plain silly. Stupid foam pointy ears and a made-up, gibberish language.

  “Why didn’t you record the song you were playing on the cliff?” Eamon asked.

  “I couldn’t remember it,” I said. “That’s like asking someone to remember a poem word for word they read a few days ago. If I had a few days to figure it out, maybe I could—”

  “Oh well,” he said, making me grit my teeth.

  “I’m not a real musician, Eamon. It was a stupid idea to begin with.”

  “It was my idea. Thanks, like.” He let me go, and an awkward moment passed before I realized he was waiting for me to get off him. Once we were standing, he ran a hand through his wild curls. “I’ve got to go have my hair chopped. Say goodbye to a few inches of me.”

  “Goodbye,” I said flatly.

  He made a weird, exasperated sound and walked away.

  I AM WOMAN, HEAR ME RUIN EVERYTHING

  Cate Collins stood by the lake, a sliver of a person. Petite, narrow. Sharp.

  She inspected a huge tree with gnarled roots that spider-climbed into the water. Henrik stood nearby, scribbling Cate’s observations into his notebook.

  I slowly recognized the scene I’d read yesterday in the recording studio. The great white tree that Se
vyn hugged through her fever dream. Wait, the tree…the tree was supposed to be Nolan. Eamon. I looked over it again. Gorgeous, reaching branches, a smooth-barked trunk.

  Crew members spun around Cate like satellites, close but never too close. They put down wires and set up a base for the huge camera crane on the soft shore. They were being inspected—we all were—by the same brown-haired reporter who had spooked Julian back on Inishmore. She was talking to the cinematographer, but her eyes were trained on Cate.

  This was the woman who’d gotten under Shoshanna’s skin. What did she want?

  I approached Cate only to have Henrik shake his head at me. A warning. I started to walk away, but Cate’s voice stopped me. “I already know, Iris. You didn’t manage it.”

  I turned around. “How?”

  Cate peered at the sky, one hand shielding her eyes. “Because if you had succeeded at the studio, you would have busted into my trailer last night to tell me.”

  Why did she have to be right about me all time?

  “I’m sorry,” I said, my voice gruff. “The poem was… It was too hard.”

  “Everything is too hard,” she said. I waited for her to elaborate. Too hard for the movie? For women? What? But Cate was distracted by the reporter clearly trailing our conversation. “Her name is Grace Lee. She’s freelance. A veritable spy for the producers of Elementia.”

  “Catherine,” Henrik warned.

  “Don’t you ‘Catherine’ me, Henrik. I know what’s going on, and they don’t treat this production well enough for me to paint pretty lies for them to peddle about!” Her voice rose, her temper teetering on some cliff’s edge. She growled and walked back to the water.

  Henrik took a deep breath, and we both watched Cate place a shielding hand over her eyes again. It wasn’t that bright out; she was trying to hide her expression.