“Technically, I’m not treating her,” Gil said. “I don’t have the authority. Basically, I just called her into my office twice a week and let her talk. She just wanted attention, so I let her talk to me as much as she wanted. Most of it was mundane, but I think the human contact was the most important thing.”
“And you’re sure you don’t know anything about an older boyfriend, right?” Jack asked.
“I’m sure.”
Jack and Brian got to their feet, extending their hands in turn to Gil.
“Thanks for talking to us,” Jack said.
“I just hope I helped.”
“You gave us … a lot to think about,” Jack said.
“I do have a question,” Gil said as he led them to the door. “What’s going to happen to Kelly now?”
“We’re not sure yet,” Brian said. “I can tell you she will not be returning to the Gideons. I believe the state is looking for a new foster family, but she’s in limbo right now.”
“Where is she staying?”
“At a safe place in Shadow Lake,” Jack said.
“I hope you find out what happened to her,” Gil said. “The girl has already been through so much. I fear something like this might break her.”
“She’s strong,” Jack said. “We’re doing everything in our power to see that she remains that way.”
“That’s good,” Gil said. “We need more police officers like you. God bless you.”
Jack’s cheeks burned under the praise. “Um … thanks.”
“Thank you for your time,” Brian said. “We might stop by to talk again if something comes up.”
“Stop in whenever you want,” Gil said. “If you feel like it might help for me to talk to Kelly, don’t hesitate to ask.”
“We’ll consider it.”
Sixteen
“Where are we going?” Kelly asked, following Ivy into the woods on the far side of her property. “I thought we were going back to the greenhouse after lunch.”
“We’re going for a walk,” Ivy said. “We’ve done enough work for one day.”
“But … why are we going into the woods?” Kelly was nervous. She had an unfortunate habit of wringing her hands when she didn’t know what else to do with them. She wasn’t prone to excited utterances and gestures. Ivy had a feeling it was because she went out of her way to remain calm since she was always in someone else’s house, but she wanted to test the theory further before making up her mind.
“I happen to love the woods,” Ivy said. “I find them … relaxing.”
“But … .” Kelly broke off, biting her lower lip.
Ivy slowed her forward momentum. “But what?”
“Aren’t you afraid?”
“What would I be afraid of?”
“The man who broke into your house last night.” Kelly’s voice was barely a whisper.
“I thought you didn’t want to talk about him.”
“I don’t.”
“I’m not frightened of these woods,” Ivy said, choosing her words carefully. “I grew up in these woods. I daydreamed in these woods. I played games with Max in these woods. These woods are magic. No one can ever take that away from me.”
“Magic?” Kelly looked both surprised and hopeful.
“There are all different kinds of magic,” Ivy said. “Some you can see, and some you can feel. I’m going to take you to a place where you can do both.”
“And we’ll be safe?”
“We’ll be safe,” Ivy said. “I promised to keep you safe. I plan on keeping that promise.”
“What if he is out here?” Kelly asked, her fingers shaking.
“I don’t think he would risk coming out here when the sun is still out,” Ivy said. “You don’t have to worry about him coming back tonight either. Jack will be back before the sun sets. He’s staying with us again.”
“I thought he was angry with me.”
“Jack is frustrated,” Ivy said. “He’s dealing with a few things of his own, and he’s trying to keep us safe. He’s got a lot on his plate.”
“Why won’t he talk about those scars on his chest?” Kelly asked.
“Because he’s not ready to do it yet,” Ivy replied. “You shouldn’t have brought them up. You more than anyone should realize that Jack needs to deal with his wounds on his own timetable. You don’t want to be pushed, so why did you think it was all right to push Jack?”
“I didn’t mean to hurt him,” Kelly said, her green eyes wide as they landed on Ivy’s conflicted blue ones. “I really didn’t. I like Jack.”
“Jack has a job to do,” Ivy said. “He’s a good man. He wants to help you. Heck, Jack is the type of man who will die to protect you. He still deserves his own secrets.”
“I’ll apologize,” Kelly said, her voice low.
“You will,” Ivy agreed. “When Jack presses you on what happened, he’s not trying to hurt you. He’s trying to help you. I understand you don’t want to talk about it. I understand something truly terrible happened to you. I don’t understand why you’re protecting the man who hurt you, though.”
“That’s not what I’m doing,” Kelly said, her knuckles whitening under the exertion she was using to hold her hands in place.
“Then what are you doing?”
“I don’t want to think about it,” Kelly said. “Can’t you understand that?”
“I can.”
“Can’t you accept it and let it go?”
“No,” Ivy said. “What I can do is promise to let it go for the next few hours, though. I want to take you to a special place. I’m hoping it will help you as much as it helped me.”
“WHAT DO you think?” Jack asked from the passenger seat of Brian’s car as they headed back toward Shadow Lake.
“I think Kelly has lived a very sad life,” Brian said.
“If the guidance counselor is right, and he seemed pretty sincere, Kelly is one of those kids who is smarter than anyone around her realizes,” Jack said. “She’s probably bored in class, and disinterested in life outside of it.”
“What do you think about the boyfriend?”
“Just because she didn’t own up to having an older boyfriend to Thorpe, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t exist,” Jack said. “High school kids are all over the place with the gossip, but a lot of times it does stem from something real. They might not have all the details right, but I’m betting they have some of them right.”
“Thorpe has been trying to help Kelly find focus in her life,” Brian said. “If he’s right about the lying … .”
“I know what you’re thinking,” Jack said. “Even if Kelly showed up in Ivy’s greenhouse looking for attention, that doesn’t explain the guy who tried to break into Ivy’s house. Ivy wasn’t thrown into the wall by a lie.”
“That’s true,” Brian said. “What if Kelly knows something about someone and they’re desperate to shut her up? She has a reputation as a liar, but someone might be scared that she’ll find the right set of ears and be vindicated for telling the truth.”
“That would explain why Kelly is so frightened,” Jack said. “We have no way of knowing what she knows until she tells us, though.”
“And she’s still refusing to talk about it,” Brian mused. “How long do you think that will last?”
“As long as Ivy keeps enabling her.”
“Ivy is going to protect that girl with every ounce of strength she has,” Brian said. “You might want to pick a different battle.”
“Ivy and I have come to an understanding,” Jack said. “I’m going to let her drag the truth out of Kelly at her own pace as long as she lets me stay at her house to make sure they’re safe after dark.”
“Oh, well, that’s convenient,” Brian said, his smirk wry.
“I’m sleeping on the couch,” Jack said, not bothering to admit he’d shared it with a guest the previous evening.
“I didn’t say you weren’t,” Brian said. “That’s a small cottage for two big personalities, thou
gh.”
“We’ll be fine,” Jack said. “Ivy is scared, too. She doesn’t want to admit it, but she is.”
“And you’re going to keep her safe, aren’t you?”
“Even if it kills me,” Jack confirmed.
“WHAT is this place?” Kelly’s eyes were as wide as saucers as she looked around Ivy’s fairy ring with unabashed delight. The round circle of mushrooms was naturally occurring, and it just happened to ring a tree that was so old it appeared to have a wizened face.
“It’s called a fairy ring,” Ivy said, smiling. This was her favorite place on Earth. Whenever she visited, she believed all things were possible.
“What is it, though?”
“Well, it depends on what you believe,” Ivy said. “Fairy rings pop up in folklore throughout time. Some people think that fairy rings are made by dragon tails. Some people believe that fairy rings are where the Devil goes to churn milk.”
Kelly giggled as she rolled her eyes. “Do you expect me to believe that?”
“I didn’t say I believed it,” Ivy clarified. “I was just telling you what other people believe. Some people also believe they’re circles where witches cast spells.”
Kelly stilled. “Are you a witch?”
“Did you hear someone refer to me as one?” Ivy asked.
“No, but I heard you and Jack arguing about sharing dreams yesterday,” Kelly replied. “I … um … you admitted to walking in his dreams. I don’t know what that means, but I think that’s why Jack was so upset the other day.”
“Technically, I identify myself as Wiccan sometimes,” Ivy said. “That’s a belief system, though. I don’t call myself a witch. I don’t believe I can fly on a broom, or curse people into doing what I want. I do believe in magic, though.”
“Does that include walking in Jack’s dreams?”
“I don’t know what’s going on with Jack’s dreams,” Ivy admitted. “It’s never happened to me before.”
“Can you do it because you’re a witch?” Kelly was genuinely curious.
“If you’re asking me if I believe I have magical powers, the answer is no,” Ivy said. “I am open to the possibility of different forms of earth magic, though. I believe that there is power in words, and beliefs. Even though I identify myself as Wiccan, I think it’s more apt to say that I’m a spiritual naturalist.
“Before you ask the obvious next question, that means I love nature,” she continued. “I believe that magic stems from nature, although there are a lot of different types of magic.”
“Do you believe in God?” Kelly asked.
That was a tricky question. Ivy asked it of herself numerous times. The simple answer was: She didn’t know. “I believe in a lot of things. I don’t necessarily believe it matters what your faith is as long as you believe in yourself. What do you believe in?”
“I don’t believe in anything,” Kelly said matter-of-factly. “My foster parents made me go to church sometimes, but I don’t believe in God.”
“Why not?”
“Because I can’t believe in any benevolent God who would take my parents away from me and thrust me into this life,” Kelly said. “If there is a God, he’s not one I would ever want to know.”
“Bad things happen all the time, Kelly,” Ivy said. “No one can control everything. What happened to you is terrible. What happened to your parents is terrible. You can’t go back in time and change it, though.”
“I keep feeling like I’m living someone else’s life,” Kelly said. “I can’t help but feel that this isn’t the life I was supposed to live.”
“What life do you think you were supposed to live?”
“I was supposed to grow up in the same house with my mother, father, and brother,” Kelly said. “I was supposed to get Christmases with them. They were all supposed to be there when I graduated from high school. My father was supposed to walk me down the aisle. My brother was supposed to tease me, like Max teases you.”
This was the first time Ivy heard mention of a brother. “I didn’t know you had a brother.”
“He was older than me,” Kelly said. “He was a teenager when my parents died. They tried to keep us together, but Jordan was older so he went to a big place that had a lot of teenagers, and I went to a family who said they were looking to adopt a child.”
“What happened then?”
“They kept me for nine months, and then they got offered a baby,” Kelly said. “They said they wanted to keep us both, but it was just too much work, and I got sent back into the system the day they got their baby girl.”
Ivy pressed her eyes shut, horrified. “I don’t know what to say to that,” she said. “You know you didn’t do anything wrong, right?”
“No one wants to make me part of their family,” Kelly said. “That was a valuable lesson for me. That’s when I realized I was on my own. I’m okay with that. I’ll be fine.”
“I don’t think you believe that,” Ivy said. “You want a family. I understand that. As frustrating as my family is, I wouldn’t trade them for the world. You can still make a family of your own.”
“Maybe some day,” Kelly said. “Not now, though.”
“Come with me.” Ivy held her hand out, watching as Kelly wordlessly took it. Then she led the teenager into the middle of the fairy ring and directed her to sit. Once they were both settled, Ivy drew Kelly’s hands into hers. “Close your eyes.”
“What are we going to do?” Kelly asked, nervously glancing around.
“We’re going to let all of the hurt go,” Ivy said. “Close your eyes and breathe. Just breathe. Push everything out of your mind. Don’t think about what happened to you. Don’t think about what’s going to happen next. Just focus on the now.”
“And then what?”
“And then we’ll see where the day takes us,” Ivy said.
Seventeen
Kelly’s face was still streaked with drying tears as Ivy led her out of the woods two hours later. She had no idea what the girl saw – or felt – but she couldn’t help but hope the teenager finally managed to put some of the pain behind her.
Ivy knew there was a lot more healing to go, though.
Broad male shoulders met Ivy’s gaze as she rounded the corner of her house, and for a moment she was taken aback thinking someone had come for Kelly. When the man turned, though, Ivy was relieved to find Max’s face staring back at her.
“Where were you?” Max asked.
“We took a walk,” Ivy said. “What are you doing here?”
“I just had your new door installed,” he said. “Come look.”
Ivy trudged to the front of the house, not missing Max’s face as he studied Kelly’s drawn features. He wisely kept his mouth shut and directed Ivy toward the painted metal monstrosity he was so proud of. “This is ugly.”
“I’ll paint it a different color this weekend,” Max said. “You can live with it for now. No one is getting through this door. It has a deadbolt, and I installed a new security chain.”
“What color are you going to paint it?” Ivy asked.
“Why is it that you fixate on the stupid stuff?” Max asked.
“Why is it that you won’t tell me what color you’re going to paint this door?”
“I’m going to paint it pink, just like your hair.”
“Pink is good for hair,” Ivy said. “It’s not good for a door, though.”
“Fine. What color do you want me to paint it?”
“Green.”
“Fine. I’ll paint it green.”
“I want you to touch up the trim while you’re at it,” Ivy said, studying the splintered wood in the doorjamb. “I don’t like it like this. It makes me unhappy.”
“Well, we can’t have that,” Max said, rolling his eyes until they landed on Kelly. “What do you think? Is this a fancy door, or what?”
“It looks strong,” Kelly said, rubbing her fingertips over the metal. “No one can get in, right?”
“No one can get in,” Ma
x reassured her.
“Jack will be sleeping on the couch, too,” Ivy reminded her. “You’ll be safe.”
“Okay,” Kelly said. “I’m … um … going to go and wash my face in the bathroom. Is that okay?”
“Take your time,” Ivy said. “We’ll decide what we want for dinner when you’re done.”
Kelly forced a wan smile. “Thank you … for everything.”
“Don’t mention it,” Ivy said.
Once Kelly was gone, Max turned to Ivy with an arched eyebrow. “Do you want to tell me what that was all about?”
“I took her out to the fairy ring.”
“Did you beat her while you were out there?”
Ivy smacked his arm. “Of course not. Do you have to be such a … ?”
“Great brother?”
“I was going to say rampant pain in my ass,” Ivy countered.
“You say tomato,” Max teased.
Ivy’s face was serious as she studied him for a moment, and then – without warning – she threw her arms around his neck. Max was surprised by the gesture, and he hugged her back wordlessly.
“Thank you for being such a good brother,” Ivy said. “I know I don’t tell you how much I love you enough.”
“I know you love me,” Max said, rubbing her back. “I love you, too. Do you want to tell me what this is about?”
Ivy told Max about her afternoon with Kelly. When she was done, Max was angry. “I can’t believe people would just trade her in for a baby.”
“It’s horrible,” Ivy said. “I never realized how lucky we were to have Mom and Dad until now. I mean, in the back of my mind I knew they were great parents, but we had a great childhood.”
“We did,” Max agreed, releasing Ivy as she took a step back. “You look tired.”
“It’s been a long couple of days,” Ivy conceded.
“I have an idea,” Max said. “Why don’t you let me take Kelly for the rest of the afternoon? I’ll show her around town. I’ll take her to dinner. That will give you some time to yourself.”
“I can’t ask you to do that.”
“You didn’t ask,” Max said. “I volunteered. I like her. It might do you two some good to be apart for a little bit.”
Wicked Dreams Page 12
