Now a Major Motion Picture

by Cori McCarthy

  I put my head on his shoulder. “Maybe…we can still make a difference. Maybe it’s not over,” I whispered into his neck. I closed my eyes and dared the rest in a rush. “Maybe the Thornians liked my song, and they’re rallying, and we get to finish this movie. How’s that?”

  He kissed my hair. “Do that more often.”

  “No way. I’ve completely jinxed it. It won’t happen now because I said it. And now I’m going to have to leave. Today.” I started to shake, my thoughts as blinding as if lightning were taking over my brain. “I have to say goodbye to you and I can’t even…”

  I pressed my hands to his chest and felt the spot where his heart pounded. I flooded with a range of hopes all at once, some so surprising they felt brand-new. I hope we stay together. I hope he moves to LA and becomes an actor. I hope I can tell my dad how I really feel. I hope my songs are part of something bigger. I hope I become a music supervisor for films, like Cate said.

  “Iris.” Eamon touched my face, making my eyes open. I hadn’t realized I’d shut them. “I have something good to show you. Wait here.” He ran across the circle to his trailer, coming back a few seconds later with Grandma Mae’s biography.

  “I don’t think I can read that yet, Eamon.”

  He opened to the picture of her standing on the very edge of Dun Aengus. “Remember how I said I wanted to know who she was looking at like she was in love?” He pointed at the caption. PHOTO BY JOHN WARREN. “The answer was right here all along.”

  “That could be a publicist photographer,” I said. He shook his head and flipped through all the other photos of her in Ireland. All by John Warren. “So, this guy was her…late-in-life boyfriend?”

  “Husband,” Eamon corrected. “I finally finished reading a few days ago. I had no idea she’d moved here for a fella. Seems like the Thorne ladies have a thing for the Irish.” Eamon smirked as he flipped to the last picture in the book. He held it out and leaned back.

  The picture was sad; there was no way around it. Grandma Mae’s long, dark hair was gone, replaced by a scarf to cover her chemo-inspired baldness. She was sickly thin and so tired looking, and yet she seemed content, snuggled up next to a kind-faced man. He reminded me of an old Eamon.

  “Iris,” Eamon said. “He was her Nolan.”

  “Wonder if he’s still alive,” I said, a bit dazed.

  Eamon took a napkin with a phone number out of the book. “He lives in Kerry. I spoke to him the other day.” My mouth fell open, and Eamon rushed his words. “I wasn’t trying to be sneaky. I didn’t know if he was the right guy, and well, he was, but then I wanted to make sure he wasn’t awful. He’s not awful, Iris. He still loves your grandmother a lot, and he wants to talk to you and your brother.”

  I buried my face in my hands, flushing hot all over.

  Eamon clearly thought I’d take the news better. “Sorry, sorry. I’m an arse.”

  “No, no. It’s just…I hoped we could bring the movie back and instead you give me a grandfather? That’s an odd trade. And now all I can think about is that my dad hid this from me.”

  “Maybe he had reasons,” Eamon said, kissing my elbow, my shoulder, my neck. “I shouldn’t have told you.”

  “No, thank you. There’s someone alive who knew her and remembers her and won’t mind talking to me. That’s got to be a good sign.”

  “There’s my hopeful girl.” He pulled me close for the kind of kiss that makes the sun rise. I pulled him tight around the waist and even slipped my hands under his shirt. His back was smooth and warm. A tiny groan slipped out of his mouth and that made me kiss him even deeper.

  Cate’s trailer sprung open, interrupting our kiss, and out stomped Cate and Henrik. “Skip them for today. We have bigger fish to fry,” Cate said in a loud, commanding voice. “I want everyone in motion by nine. Skip the Castletown extras. We’ll add them in digitally if need be. And about the—”

  Cate stopped short at the sight of us tangled in each other’s arms. Henrik placed a hand over his grin. Cate’s eye’s narrowed. “Where is the rest of your little coup?”

  I pointed to my trailer, and she stormed inside. What was happening? Were we in trouble? Eamon and I filed in behind Henrik.

  “Wake up, Ryder. Shoshanna.” Cate stood with her hands on her tiny hips, Henrik beside her. Shoshanna and Ryder woke up, glancing around.

  “What’s going on?” Ryder asked.

  “There’s been some collusion.” Cate’s Irish accent went to work on that word, turning it downright poetic. She trained a hard eye on all of us, her energy back. Brilliantly so. “Was no one going to tell me about your royal plan to infect the internet with this Elementia-inspired love story?” She pointed at Eamon and me, arms still entwined.

  “Did it go viral?” Shoshanna asked.

  “Four million views and counting,” Henrik said. “All the secret Elementia fans are crawling out of the woodwork. Everyone from Taylor Swift to Benedict Cumberbatch have been lighting up their social media.”

  “Benedict!” Shoshanna and I shouted in stereo.

  “Truly?” Eamon asked.

  “I’m only human,” I muttered. I turned to Cate’s tight smirk. Was she pleased? Mad?

  “You two.” She pointed to Eamon and Shoshanna. “Makeup and wardrobe. We’ve got until one o’clock to shoot here and then we need to hightail it to Dingle. Julian is already on a flight so we can shoot the last on-location scene tomorrow.”

  “The filming is back on?” I asked, a buzz in my head that yelled, This isn’t possible!

  “We are experiencing a brief stay of execution. Two days to film five days’ worth of shots,” she said. Everyone’s faces fell a little. “But I’ll take it. Won’t you?”

  Ryder, still in his pajamas, rushed out to help Mr. Donato. Eamon, Shoshanna, and I ended up in a group hug of sorts. Eamon even kissed me in front of Cate and whispered, “Admit it, Iris, hope works. Admit it!”

  “Maybe,” I said. He winked and flew out the door. I found myself alone with Cate.

  “Your grandmother would have been proud of that song, Iris.”

  My cheeks were hot, and I couldn’t look her in the eye. “I think you have to say that.”

  “I never say anything socially compulsory. I say what I mean.” I could feel her stare, and I finally looked up. “Call your dad, Iris. No doubt he’s seen it. No doubt the two of you need to talk. Break some new ground this time.”

  “I’ll try,” I said, pausing. “Does this mean things might work out for the film?”

  She sat on Ryder’s bed. “The odds aren’t good. Too many financial complications. Perhaps this will turn into a TV miniseries. I think the Syfy channel might buy it. They had some success with The Magicians. This is a similar audience.”

  I shook my head. “This has got to be a major motion picture.”

  Cate went flinty eyed. “Your reasons?”

  “Because my grandmother’s story is important. It’ll empower girls, like you said.”

  Cate didn’t budge. “And?”

  “Because Shoshanna was made for this role! And people respond to this story and your vision. And my dad is wrong. And a hundred other reasons. And because Eamon has to be a big damn star so he can move to LA and stay my boyfriend!”

  She erupted in laughter, and I worried I was about to get a lecture. Instead, she stood and touched my chin. “Look what happens when you take charge, Iris. You’re a force of nature. Remember that when you talk to your dad.”

  • • •

  I was tempted to email. That was safe. Distant. But I didn’t want to be safe anymore. I wanted to stand in front of my dad and ask him what the hell went wrong between him and his mother. Then maybe I could start to understand what the hell went wrong between us.

  “Dad.”

  “Hello, Iris. How are you and your brother doing?” His phone voice was so courte
ous; he might has well have been talking to his publisher.

  “We’re fine. We’re on our way to Dingle later today. They’ve had to…rush the last bit of filming. This is all going to wrap up by the end of the day tomorrow.”

  “Is it now?”

  I held the phone away from my ear and counted to five. He was being civil because he knew it’d drive me into an emotional response from which he would always win. “We’d like you to join us for the last day on set.”

  “You would?” he said, genuine surprise in his voice.

  “Yes. Well, if you’ve finished your draft. We don’t want to interrupt.”

  His tone cracked with aggravation. “No, I haven’t finished. I haven’t been able to write since your little blow up. I do care about being your father. I do care about my children. I know I’ve been painted the villain since I was late to pick you up at the playground that day. I know I’ll never live that down.” My dad had never brought up the abduction before. How often did it weigh on his mind? If the heaviness of his tone was any indicator, it was a lot. “But, Iris, I’m honestly just trying to have a career as well as a family. This is Human Motivation 101.”

  “I understand that.”

  “Do you? I spent an entire red-eye flight sick thinking something happened to you and Ryder. When I arrived and found you two were fine—that you were off having fun, no less—I was angry. And I wasn’t wrong to be angry.”

  I winced at his tone, but I also remembered how I’d unleashed on Ryder after he’d gotten lost on Inishmore. I’d been sick with worry, and yet when I found him, the relief came through as pure anger. “We know you care about us,” I tried.

  “Please stop speaking for your brother.”

  “Fine. I know you care. I also know you’re self-obsessed and have serious mom issues, and I don’t want to be in the dark anymore about our family. And I don’t want to be your pet.”

  “My pet?”

  “Your ‘literary-fiction girl.’”

  Dead silence. The kind of silence that follows a guillotine’s swish.

  “Have you seen my song yet?” I asked.

  “Is this about Coldplay again?”

  “No. I posted a song online. A song I wrote. You should watch it. And then you should come to Dingle. We’ll be waiting for you.” I hung up.

  IRIS & RYDER

  Film: Elementia

  Director: Cate Collins

  On Location: Day 11

  Last Day

  Dingle Peninsula, Ireland

  Filming Notes:

  A.M.: SEVYN enters Thornbred scene

  P.M.: SEVYN & EVYN escape Thornbred, aided by NOLAN & MAEDINA.

  Etc. Notes:

  Wrap dinner at John Benny’s Pub

  MICHAEL EDWARD THORNE, THE EDMUND/GOLLUM/SEVERUS SNAPE OF THIS PRODUCTION

  The Dingle Peninsula was gorgeous. Rolling green pastures in all directions, dotted by a picturesque, colorful town on a tiny, sweet harbor. And then? Dashing cliffs, giving way to a glittering ocean and the silhouettes of skeletal islands.

  The filming took over everyone’s attention for the entire day, leaving me with Elementia. My grandmother’s language reached into my head, painting the world with better colors, sharper outlines, deeper meanings. I sat at the picnic table by the trailers for perhaps the last time, reading the scene we were currently filming.

  The sun cast brilliance, and the twins tumbled out of the cold, black caves into its powerful, warm beams. The rays shone on the mystery of Evyn’s new power. He was still thin and small—smaller than she’d ever known him to be—but he was no longer weak. His chest bloomed as red as fire, and something dark pulsed beneath his fair skin.

  “Are you all right?” Sevyn held out her hand and wondered if her brother would be too afraid to take it. He looked over her fingers. “I can control the lightning now. An elf named Nolan taught me.”

  “It’s dangerous to name names,” Evyn said in a voice she barely knew.

  Screeches and howls echoed toward them.

  The Knye were coming. They banged through the black caves below, their snarling voices charging ahead of them.

  “Come on!” she called, still holding out her hand to him.

  “Why bother?” Evyn said. “They will catch us, and they will make you into their own power as well.”

  Sevyn shivered. “What’s happened to you?”

  The Knye had nearly reached the cave’s entrance, and she couldn’t wait for an answer. She grabbed his hand, sending him a small shock for good measure. They ran together, hand in hand, across the Blackened Wastes of Thornbred. Tree stumps stood like charcoal graves, marking the fire that had turned a peaceful nation of elves into the charred-hearted Knye.

  Sevyn thought this place might be damned—except green grass had begun to grow through the black ash, as thick as carpet. Perhaps life was returning to Elementia after all.

  Peering into the distance, I watched the small figures of Sevyn and Evyn run hand in hand across a green hill, having escaped the black caves of Thornbred. A crane camera zoomed after them, while Eamon and Nell Waterson were in costume off to one side. They were waiting to sweep in and help defeat the Knye—a host of stunt doubles in all-green spandex suits—chasing them.

  After this, the cast and crew would pack up and head back to LA to film the scenes in the island kingdom of Cerul where the twins are welcomed home, and Sevyn gets hailed as a hero. Right before Evyn murders the king, sets fire to the entire island, and disappears. Sevyn is left to save her people by taking them to the only land available—Elementia. Bam. End of Book One.

  Nice one, Grandma Mae.

  It was too bad that the sequels had been canceled because, the story twisted deeper, darker, and more passionate as the characters grew older. Maybe the movie will do so well that the fans will demand it, I hoped. I still didn’t know what happened at the end of the third book, but I was mostly through the second, and falling in love with all of it—which made me want to look up Mr. Sams and drop him a line.

  Which then made me think about the challenge I’d issued my dad yesterday, and the phone number for John Warren in my pocket.

  Time was doing that screwy thing: moving too fast. I wanted our last day to be years long, so each minute felt like an hour. I pulled out my notebook, scribbling lyrics before I caught sight of a narrow figure in a black casual suit. His nose was in the air; he was trying to seem composed, even though he looked downright scared.

  I could see it in every inch of him. My dad was as terrified as I’d been ten days ago.

  I closed my notebook and approached him. “Walk down to the harbor with me?”

  He squinted, surprised, but I’d said the right thing. Getting away from the filming would help him relax. We headed down the road toward the town and the blinding-white rays reflecting off the water. We were halfway there before he spoke.

  “I thought your song showed promise,” he said. I nearly sprained my neck looking at him. “Don’t seem so surprised. I have good taste, don’t I?”

  About ten answers yammered through my brain, but I didn’t speak.

  “Iris, I’m not going to pretend I want you to be an artist. I’d love for you to become a doctor or professor. Some career that doesn’t suck the marrow out of your bones for a paycheck the size of an insult which is then taxed at forty percent.” He sighed. “But if it’s in you, you have to let it out.”

  “Is that what Grandma Mae said when you told her you wanted to be a writer?”

  “You’re going to keep asking until I answer, is that it?” he snapped.

  “Yes.” I paused, eyeing the water. “Maybe it’s not fair to make you remember, but it’s not fair to keep me in the dark.”

  “Sam…” His voice was rough with old pain, his temples full of gray. Guess time was sneaking up on him too. “None of this is about y
our grandmother, Iris. It’s about my sister. She died. We were thirteen.”

  I didn’t tell him I’d figured out that much. “That’s horribly sad.”

  “You can’t imagine,” he said roughly, but then he sighed. “It had been the three of us. My father was more neglectful than yours, if you can imagine.” He cast a glance at me that I didn’t respond to. “So when Sam was gone, it was the two of us. I was angry. My mother was depressed. She started writing. She disappeared into her pages. I could have gotten addicted to heroin and she wouldn’t have noticed. She published that first book the same year I graduated from high school and I refused to read it. She moved to Ireland, fell in love, and made a new life without me. I hadn’t spoken to her in ten years when you were born.”

  The road beneath our feet connected to the shore, and the bright squawk of seagulls filled the air, a salty tang on the wind. “Then why name me after her?” I asked.

  “You came out looking just like her, like Sam. I called Mom from the hospital, and we had a nice talk. She was happy, and it was rather impulsive, but I wanted my mom back, so I gave you her name. I thought you could help us heal,” he said quietly.

  “Sorry I failed.” My voice came out serrated.

  “Of course you didn’t fail. Don’t be melodramatic.” His steps picked up as we crossed the harbor. We sat on a bench before a dolphin statue. “The fallout was all my doing. I decided to finally read her books.” He glared at the copy of the Elementia trilogy in my hand.

  “And you hated them?”

  “Hate is a lazy word.” He took the book and flipped through it. “I don’t hate this. I lived it. My mother is in all these characters. And I am too. And there’s so much Sam, I can’t even…” He handed the book back. “Sam was a firestorm, Iris. Like Sevyn. I swear she died yelling at her doctors. Even when she couldn’t breathe, she’d yell. There was no peace about it.”

  No peace.

  That’s what I’d always felt rushing through the bones of my family: a startling lack of peace. It made songs rush through me and good moments feel like tricks of the light. My imagination shrunk my dad to a thirteen-year-old who’d lost his twin and mother in one swift blow. Furious and powerless, he’d been older than Ryder, younger than me.