He touched her shoulder, and she grabbed his hand firmly. I couldn’t tell if they were more than film partners in a wink, wink, nudge, nudge kind of way or if they were truly, deeply friends. The latter seemed more likely, and for whatever reason, also much more powerful.
“I’m with you, Cay,” Henrik said. “But how do we recover from all this bad press?”
“You put M. E. Thorne’s grandkids in the movie.”
Their heads turned toward me in unison.
“There’s no way your dad will give us permission,” Henrik said.
I shrugged. “I’ll email my mom. I can have it for you by morning.”
“You’re serious?” Henrik asked.
“My dad won’t stop us. He’s in the dog house—particularly with Ryder. He hates being hated.”
Cate’s blue eyes were alight, and I wanted to memorize her fearlessness. “Call our friends at the Wrap, Henrik. Tell them to meet us in Cashel. We’re going to need coverage of M. E. Thorne’s grandchildren filming their big-screen debut.”
• • •
“This is like a sleepover!” Ryder whisper-yelled through the dark trailer.
“Sure, buddy. A sleepover. So go to sleep!” I said. Eamon giggled from beside me in the bed. He rolled on his side, and I snuggled into his chest as casually as possible. All the while my brain screamed, We’re in a bed together! Oh my god, we’re in a bed!
“Is he ever going to fall asleep?” Eamon whispered.
“Since we want him to, not likely.” A nearby light slipped through the blinds, revealing Eamon’s open eyes only a few inches from mine. “He’s too excited.”
“What’s my costume going to look like?” Ryder asked. “Will I get elf ears?”
“Definitely,” Eamon said at the same time that I yelled, “No!”
“I don’t want to be a human, Iris!”
“I don’t know any more than I told you. Go to sleep!” Ryder moaned and flopped around. “I’m actually excited,” I whispered to Eamon. “What roles are even available for the scene at Cashel?”
“I think you’ll be ghosts,” Eamon said. “When Sevyn enters the ruins of the castle and encounters the elves and men who died there centuries earlier.”
I pictured the scene I’d read earlier. After meeting Nolan, Sevyn wanders south to where she believes the Knye are holding Evyn. She passes a dead, falling-down castle town full of memories and pain. She gets caught up in it and doesn’t come to her senses until Nolan reappears and leads her away. Then she goes to the caves beneath the Blackened Wastes of Thornbred…
“They’ll be shooting all the Thornbred, kidnapping, blood-drinking stuff in LA, right?”
“Yeah. That’ll be the majority of Julian’s scenes,” he said.
“Good. I don’t want to see that, although I do miss Julian. He’s too funny.”
“He makes me mad jealous.” Eamon pulled me closer. “You do go faintish around him sometimes. And you have his face on your pants.”
“Those were a gag gift from friends who, in hindsight, aren’t good friends.” Eamon scowled, and I added, “I had a minor crush on him, but that was before I knew him. Now he makes me laugh. Besides, only one of us has kissed Julian Young, and it wasn’t me, Charles.”
Eamon turned his head into the pillow and groaned. “I’m never going to live that down.”
“Guys! You better go to sleep!” Ryder called out.
“Iris,” Eamon whispered. “You sure your da is going to go for this?”
“Doesn’t matter. Mom already signed the permission form and sent it back. I always have her sign stuff for school because she doesn’t care.”
“You don’t talk about your mam much.”
“When we’ve been dating three months, I’ll tell you about her.”
“I accept that challenge,” he said, leaning over to kiss my neck.
I curled closer to Eamon, my nerves lighting up every place we touched. “I’ve never slept in a bed with a boy before.”
“First for me too,” he said. “So what do we do?”
“Think you can sleep?”
“No.”
“Me neither. So let’s stare at each other all night.” I was joking, but we did stare. I held my hand up in the muted light, and we tangled fingers over and over. It was part examination, part exploration, and it left me wanting to memorize him freckle by freckle.
“We have to make it a success,” I whispered long after Ryder’s breath proved he’d fallen asleep. “If my family is attached, it has to be great. The story has to have a chance to reach people. I won’t be embarrassed if that happens. I’ll be—oh.”
Earlier that day, I couldn’t figure out what Elementia was supposed to mean to me. Now I knew what had changed irrevocably when I read it.
“Wow,” I murmured.
“Have you had an epiphany? Do you know how we can boost support?”
“I’m proud that my grandma wrote it. It’s honest and sad, yet hopeful. I’m proud. And it’s like my grandma feels like a real person all of the sudden.”
Eamon pulled me closer, which shouldn’t have been possible, but somehow we managed. “Of course she was real.”
“But she’s never felt real. My dad talks about her like she was a famous, obnoxious stranger, and I only met her that one time.” I pictured that sepia-colored memory, walking in the park with a woman with long, black hair. She’d made me nervous. I remembered that now. She’d corrected me when I said something simple…that the sky was a pretty blue.
It’s azure.
She’d said something else as well. I could remember the tip of it. Sort of. I reached deeper into the memory. It felt like digging with my fingers.
“I’m glad he let me meet you.”
“What?” Eamon asked through the dark.
“That’s what Grandma Mae said to me. ‘I’m glad he let me meet you.’”
IRIS & RYDER
Film: Elementia
Director: Cate Collins
On Location: Day 9
Killykeen Forest, Ireland A.M.
Cashel, Ireland P.M.
Filming Notes:
A.M.: SEVYN & NOLAN’s scene around the fire
P.M.: Evening shot at the Rock of Cashel. SEVYN, NOLAN, 24 human and elf extras. Cameos by IRIS & RYDER THORNE.
Etc. Notes:
Moving lock, stock, and barrel to the Rock of Cashel by one o’clock.
Mandatory tour of the ruin for all cast and crew at two with specific instructions to respect the property.
UNTANGLING THE TIMELINE
The video village was farther back from the action today because they were shooting dialogue. I sat in the canvas chair like I had the night of Eamon’s first scene, only now I wore headphones and peered into the monitor, watching like it was a movie. A real movie.
They weren’t even Shoshanna and Eamon anymore. They were Sevyn and Nolan, up all night together beside the lake, Sevyn fighting a fever. Nolan caring for this strange, cursed human who had woken him from a thousand years of slumber in his great, white-barked tree.
A small, real fire crackled between them, and I watched the wind catch the smoke and throw it at camera one. Cate yelled, “Cut!” and the grumbling from behind made me peer over my right shoulder at the Vantage studio execs. They weren’t watching; they were judging. Coolly, confidently. Their nearly matching suit coats and dark jeans made me feel like they’d come for a Matrix movie and were quite disgruntled to find themselves in Elementia.
Henrik spoke quietly to Cate. “We could douse it. Put the flames in later with CGI.”
“No,” she said.
More grumbling from behind. I checked the desire to give them my best stink eye.
Cate moved forward and spoke to her actors. Then she returned to her seat and called, “Action.” I fell
back into the scene, holding my headphones tight over my ears.
Sevyn sat up from where she rested by the fire and eyed Nolan. “Who are you?”
“Be still.” Nolan moved closer, but she pulled away. “You cannot hurt me.”
“I can hurt everyone,” she snapped. “Who are you, elf?” When he didn’t respond but stared with curiosity bordering on passion, she turned, tears bright in her eyes. “You should not have helped me. You should not have touched me.”
Nolan’s whole body eased as he sat beside her. She glanced at him a few times before taking a deep breath. They stared at each other for so long I became aware of Eamon again beneath the makeup and the prosthetic ears. He looked at me that way. That was his love look. The scene continued, but I could barely pay attention. My mind flitted through my memories of us tangled up in the small trailer bed. I’d woken up this morning with my head on his shoulder and fought back tears.
Three more days in Ireland.
I focused on the scene as Sevyn stood in a rush. “My brother is hurt! Dying! I have to get to him!” She blacked out, collapsing into Nolan’s arms, and I marveled at how close she’d let herself fall toward the actual fire. From my reading, I knew Nolan was using his elven affinity with the elements to calm Sevyn’s lightning. He would help her learn to control it. To use it. To find that it was never truly a curse.
I didn’t even hear Cate call “cut,” and all of a sudden the crew was breaking down the set in a hurry. Henrik took over running things while Cate spoke heatedly with the Vantage execs. I swear her lax Irish accent returned to full strength.
Glancing around at Killykeen, I felt even worse about leaving this place than I had about watching Inishmore disappear behind the whir of the ferry engines. I took out my phone and started taking pictures of everything. Of Shoshanna and Eamon talking in their costumes. Of Ryder stuffing brown bag lunches into each crew member’s hand. Of the lake’s lonely island with its sulking tower where I’d first read my grandmother’s story.
I even snuck a photo of Shoshanna getting a makeup inspection from Roxy. True to form, Roxy looked like she stepped out of her own movie. The half of her head that wasn’t shaved had beautiful curls that cascaded over one shoulder, and she was wearing a flannel hoodie and about five men’s ties braided into a belt around her waist. Roxy started laughing at something Shoshanna said, and I snapped a couple more pictures of the two girls smiling at each other.
Shoshanna saw me with my phone, glared hard, and then whisper-hissed, “Text that to me immediately.”
I sent all my pictures to Julian as well, and I felt so damn in love with everything that I wanted more. More truth. More friends. More happiness. I couldn’t stop thinking about what I’d remembered last night. I’m glad he let me meet you. Had my dad kept Grandma Mae away when I was little? That’s not the story he told. He said she was too busy writing to care about us.
I touched the app for my Gmail, wanting to be the one to reach out first after our fight. I tapped his email and left the subject line blank. Only one sentence in the body.
Why did you keep Grandma Mae out of my life?
I hit send.
Would he respond? Would he even try to answer?
Eamon and Shoshanna headed toward me, and I pushed past the hard thoughts. Back to Ireland, where life felt good. I snagged Ryder. “All right, guys. Game faces.” I hauled us all together and took a selfie. When Ryder realized what was happening, his smile turned as huge as a Muppet’s. Eamon kissed my cheek, which brilliantly showed off his elf ears, and Shoshanna posed with some sort of I kill people with my eyes expression.
We laughed as we reviewed the masterpiece.
“Getting sentimental?” Shoshanna teased.
Henrik looked over my shoulder. “I’ll give you a thousand dollars to post it. Scrub that, I’ll give you the spare room in my apartment. Free rent in LA for a year. Think about it, Iris.”
“That would be a stretch way too far for my dad. Letting us be on the sidelines of a shot in full elf makeup is one thing. Selfie faces on the internet is entirely different.”
I squinted, realizing I hadn’t cited the Thornians or our safety as the reason why I couldn’t put my face online. This policy—like everything else I hated—was about appeasing my dad, wasn’t it?
“Wait for me in my car?” Eamon asked, handing over the keys. “We’ll head to Cashel together. I’ve got to get out of my hottie leaf pants for the drive.”
“Hashtag hottie leaf pants.” Shoshanna held up a triumphant fist.
They walked away and my phone vibrated. I found myself staring at a reply from my dad.
None of your business.
My fingers flew over the tiny cubed alphabet as I fired back my response.
Really? Because I thought she was my grandma. Or is it a fluke that her name is in the middle of mine?
I hit send, and this time I felt uneasy about what I was doing. There was a reason I never poked my dad about Grandma Mae. I didn’t know that reason, but you didn’t have to be a wizened wizard to figure out the backstory was tragic.
I found Ryder learning how to properly coil an electrical cord.
“Look what the juicer taught me to do with this stinger!”
I laughed. My brother was getting into set lingo. “Very nice, buddy. Come on. We’ve got to get ready to go south.”
We went to our trailer and grabbed a few things for the drive. One of the things he grabbed was his broken-spine copy of the Elementia trilogy. My dad’s old copy.
“Can I borrow this?” I asked.
He nodded with a huge grin. “You want to read it again? I wanted to read it again the second Dad finished reading it to me. Only the words were too big.”
We stepped outside and a mild breeze came off the lake, lifting, almost singing. “What was he like when he read it to you?” I asked.
“Unhappy,” Ryder said simply.
“Do you know why?”
“He never told me, but he told my therapist the book would make him go UPS and—”
“PTSD?”
“That’s it. He told me to sit in the waiting room.” I thought that might be the extent of Ryder’s knowledge, but then my brother leaned in conspiratorially. “It’s because of Samantha. His twin sister. The one who died when she was a kid.”
“He talked to you about her?” I couldn’t keep the incredulity out of my voice. The one time I’d asked about my deceased aunt, he’d spazzed like it was so long ago I was asking him to remember his own birth.
Ryder stroked the cover, fingers trailing over the raised letters of the title. “Sometimes he’d stop reading in the middle of a sentence. Slam the book and turn off my light. He wouldn’t even say good night.” Ryder’s face fell. “The more I liked the book, the meaner he got, so I pretended I wasn’t listening.”
There were a lot of things I wanted to say to him. This isn’t right. He’s got more baggage than both of us. I’m sorry I didn’t understand sooner.
I put my arm around him. “It sucks being a Thorne, doesn’t it?” He shrugged, and we approached the craft services van. “Do you want to drive with Mr. Donato?” I asked. “I’m going with Eamon.”
“You don’t want to come with me?” he asked.
“Let your sister have time with her boyfriend,” Mr. Donato said with a wink. He pulled the van door open, and Ryder climbed in. “Get in a mild amount of trouble, young lady. You’ve earned it.” He slammed the door, and I touched his arm.
“Thank you for yesterday. For helping Ryder when our dad got all…”
Mr. Donato—who still reminded me of Stanley Tucci too much—waved a hand to stop me. “Dads aren’t perfect. In fact, I’ve never met one who’s come even close. I’ve been telling Ryder all about it.” He patted my shoulder. “I forgot one of my kid’s birthdays last week. Blame the filming stress or the time differenc
e. Worst part is, I couldn’t even tell which daughter it was from the crying voice mail.”
“That’s terrible.”
He shrugged. “Give your dad a break. He’ll probably give you one right back.”
I turned to leave but spun back for a question. “When Ryder was screaming, you said something in his ear and he starting crying instead of fighting. What did you say?”
Mr. Donato smiled sadly. “I reminded him that he loves his dad. No matter what.”
• • •
In Eamon’s car, I leafed through the worn copy of the Elementia trilogy that had my dad’s handwriting in it, looking for answers. I scanned the marginalia, but nothing jumped out.
Next I flipped to Grandma Mae’s bio. Born in 1945. Okay, my dad was born in 1965, so Grandma Mae was young when she had him and his twin sister, Samantha. I’d only heard her name a few times before, and just thinking it now made my aunt feel more real all of a sudden. Where was she buried? What did she look like? What did I even know about my own family?
Samantha died when she was thirteen. I knew that much because my dad had robotically told my pediatrician once in front of me. I also knew that Grandma Mae published the stories in the 1980s, after Samantha’s death. But this copy wasn’t that old. I flipped to the front and checked the printing year. It was a newer edition, published in 2001. The year I was born. So around the time I entered this world, my dad bought a copy of his estranged mother’s book and read it, leaving scribbles in the margins. What happened after that?
I pulled out my phone, Mr. Donato’s words in my head, and wrote a new message. This time I appealed to my dad’s writer senses.
Dad—I don’t get the timeline. You named me after her, but then you didn’t let me meet her until…
I paused. This next piece was a guess.
…until she found out she had cancer. Eight years later.
I hit send as Eamon slid into the driver’s seat. “Everything all right?” he asked.
“I don’t know.” I took in his adorableness. He’d changed into a T-shirt and jeans, but his makeup was still on and so were those darn ears. They were, however, starting to grow on me.
Now a Major Motion Picture Page 21
