Ivy of Our Hearts

Nineteen

Despite what I felt for him, I'd talked myself too far in to back down now. "Did you bury her yourself?" I asked.

He pulled out his chair, sat, and said, "I did. Now can we have breakfast? Please." He waved at my plate and grinned, a forced grin. "Eat. I've made this all for you, Ivy."

I had more questions, but I sat like he'd proposed. After spooning a few mouthfuls of kale into my mouth, I set my fork down. I needed to know. "How did she die?" I asked.

He didn't put his fork down. In-between chews, he said, "Old age."

So she hadn't been a girlfriend, which made more sense. A little more satisfied than I'd been before, I took up my fork. "She was the one who raised you then?"

He let out a breath so deep his nose whistled. Now he did put his fork down. Reaching across the table, he put his hand over mine. "She did raise me," he said, squeezing my fingers a little. "But I don't want to talk about her. Not now. Can you trust me, Ivy, that I'll tell you about her when I'm ready? Please." A certain exchange happened between his hand and mine, like he'd spoken to me without having to speak it. He'd said, "Trust me," but with more earnest. He didn't let go until I nodded.

We ate in silence. Well, Phillip ate. I pushed kale around my plate.

"What smells so good?" Margaret came in from the bedroom stretching and yawning. The sleeve of her dress hung off one shoulder and she tugged it into place. Her right cheek was still a bit flushed where she'd rested. "It smells delicious," she said. She picked a piece of kale off her plate and popped it into her mouth. She eyed our plates. Phillip's plate had nothing but scraps and mine merely picked at. "No toast?" she said.

Phillip shoved away from the table. "I can make you some." Margaret waved her hand. He stayed sitting while she sat. Once she had her fork in her hand, he stood, taking his plate with him to the sink. "I was thinking," he said, over the gush of water from the faucet, "we should do some hunting."

"Hunting?" Margaret said. A bit of egg hung off her fork where it lingered near her mouth. She chewed with the agility of a snail, as if she'd just learned how.

Laughing, he turned off the water. "Have you ever been hunting?"

Margaret shoved her fork into her mouth. She shook her head.

"Don't worry," he said, coming back to the table. "We won't be hunting bunnies." He pushed in his chair and leaned against it. "Maybe hunting was the wrong word. I think this place could use some sprucing up, don't you think? And there's a field not too far from here. I thought we could—" His head jerked towards the door. "Manderley's back," he said, although I hadn't heard the bird.

Margaret's fork lingered near her mouth again. A slimy piece of kale fell from it to the table. She licked her lips. She hadn't heard Manderley either. Phillip trotted to the door. Sure enough, when he pulled it open, Manderley swept into the room. She settled onto the counter. In-between her claws, something writhed.

Phillip stood over her. "What's on the menu today?" He gazed at her with as much affection as Margaret with baby Benny. He stroked her head with his thumb. "Ahh," he said. "La Theraphosidae."

With as much ferocity as she'd used to nip a bug from Phillip's fingers, Manderley burrowed her beak into the spider's abdomen. It went limp. Margaret and I watched her eat. We were as curious as we were repulsed. Legs were torn from the spider's body, which Manderley gulped with readiness, tossing her had back as she did. Phillip was pleased with her. I knew this because at one point he said, "Slow down, girl. Or you'll choke to death."

"Trust me."

The words from his touch lingered, although the warmth of his touch had dissipated minutes before. I dipped my fork into my egg, letting it slip off the tines, until it became a mushy mess.

I would tell Margaret about Nora's grave if she didn't find it herself, which she would.

***

All my time in the woods, I'd lost track of the days, each day had blended into the next. My life had become a series of moments spent with Phillip and Margaret.

"What day is it?" I found myself asking her as we changed into Nora's clothing. For an old woman, her taste in clothes was youthful, if you'd been young in the 1920s. My new dress, shorter than my last, was slightly shear at the skirt with a smocked shoulder and waist and embroidered flowers at the breast and along the hem. It, too, smelled of White Gardenia, like she hadn't been dead for a long time like Phillip had said but for a day or two, like she'd be back to slip into them any minute now, and the fabric would hug her flesh in a way it would never hug ours.

"Friday," Margaret had said, but I found out later from Phillip that it was Thursday, August 27th. In a few days, Margaret and I would have been starting our senior year at Clearwater High School. I wouldn't miss the hours spent listening to our teachers drone on about hard work, responsibility, and our impending futures.

I wanted the days where we could do nothing and be no one, days that with every second gone by murmured, "Right now, right now, right now."

In the open field with Margaret and Phillip, right now, seemed like the rest of our lives. And I was okay with it being the rest of our lives.

Like he had with The Great Whispering Expanse, Phillip hadn't told us much about the field. All he'd said was, "It's somewhere I like to go sometimes when I need to clear my head. Manderley likes it, so I think you will, too."

I flicked a bug off my arm and followed him through the undergrowth. Once in a while, he'd call back to us, "You see that there," he'd point at some strange plant sprouting bulbs as bright as berries but thicker, "you can make that into tea. It's good for sore throats."

From watching him, Margaret and I learned how to move through the woods. We leapt over streams and trampled through mud puddles without much effort. We arrived at the field as we'd left the cabin, with our hearts murmuring, "Right now, right now, right now."

And the field, in its frock, brightly hued and in every color imaginable, murmured back, "Right here, right here, right here. This is where you're meant to be."

"I can't believe how beautiful this place is," Margaret said, like she had at the lake. She slapped Phillip's shoulder. "You should have told us."

He rubbed his arm as if she'd hurt him. "No need for violence. I wanted it to be a surprise. But I'm sorry," he said to me, "it doesn't have a name. Not as far as I know."

I didn't care either way. "You're a philocalist," I said to him, a word I'd found online once.

"I know I am," he said, with all seriousness in his eyes, then he shrugged in a bashful way, maybe even thought, "Oh shucks."

"Philocalist?" Margaret said.

"A lover of beauty," I said. I reached down to pluck a wildflower from the grass, a dandelion seed. I held the flower to my lips and blew on it, wishing, let there never be another moment like this one. This is enough.