The Changeling (11 page)

As soon as they got home, Mrs. Abbott had to leave again to pick up Cath from where she was decorating for a dance at the high school, so Martha walked with Ivy as far as Bent Oaks. When they were almost to the grove, Ivy began to run. Martha ran after her, and when she caught up Ivy was sitting flat on the ground in the middle of the grove in her only good dress—taking off her shoes. Then she tucked her skirt up inside the legs of her underpants and began to dance.

Martha had seen Ivy dance many times before. She was always making up dances for a ceremony or ritual, and Martha had always loved watching her. Ivy danced with a wonderful kind of unity—as if no part of her existed outside of the dance—no part of her stood back to wonder how she looked. But this time the dancing was not as much fun to watch. This time, instead of just dancing, Ivy was trying to do some of the things she had just seen the ballet dancers doing. And, of course, she couldn’t.

She kept trying things over and over, sometimes stopping to clench her fists or stomp her foot. Finally she came over to where Martha was sitting and dropped down beside her. Her face was flushed, and her voice sounded almost as if she were about to cry.

“It was so beautiful,” she said. “And I was so sure that I could do it. I could just feel how in my arms and legs. I could feel just exactly how it would be to do such perfect—
perfect
—things, so easily and—”

“But you do beautiful things,” Martha said. “The way you dance is beautiful.”

“But it’s not right,” Ivy said. “It’s not anything. I can’t do the things they can do.” She looked at Martha as if she were very angry. “But I’m going to, though. I’m going to learn how.”

For the next few weeks it was almost as if Ivy had gone away again. Actually she was right there at Bent Oaks Grove every spare minute; but she wasn’t much fun to be with. All she wanted to do was practice her dancing or read the books about ballet that she had checked out of the library. Martha and Josie waited patiently for a while, and now and then Martha even tried out a few steps herself, but after a week or two she began to get rather violently bored.

It occurred to Martha to ask Cath if it were possible for a person to teach herself to be a ballet dancer, and Cath said it wasn’t. In fact, she said, most teachers didn’t even like students to do much home practice between lessons because they would probably teach themselves bad habits. Martha relayed that information to Ivy, but it didn’t stop her.

Ivy just nodded and said, “But that’s right at first, and this isn’t right at first for me. I had those lessons in Harley’s Crossing, you know. And besides I remember a lot from when I was a dancer before. Not in my head, so much, but my arms and legs remember, and they’re remembering more all the time.”

Martha sighed and then asked resignedly, “Couldn’t you take some lessons, then? Cath’s teacher is supposed to be a very good one.”

“No,” Ivy said. “It costs too much.”

“Well then, I guess you’ll have to go on teaching yourself, but anyway, don’t you think we could do something else for a change? We never did finish about the sharls.”

“Yes,” Josie said. “Let’s do about the sharls.”

Ivy agreed and said that maybe they could do the Tree People again the next day, but when the next day came she still wanted to dance. That was the day Martha, in desperation, started talking about the burned-out house. She remembered very well how it had made her feel, but she also remembered how intrigued Ivy had seemed by it—and it was a time for extreme measures. She talked about the strangeness of the place and the sad silence, and finally she saw that Ivy was really beginning to listen. The next day they went back to the burned-out house.

As soon as they were back beneath the black edged walls, Martha wished they hadn’t come. Somehow it seemed worse than before. Maybe it was the weather, cold and gray and threatening, that made the sadness of the place seem bitterer and less intriguing. Even Ivy seemed a little uneasy at first.

But they had come to explore and so they did. They poked around for a while in a dry fishpond and grotto fashioned out of large rough rocks and agreed that if it were only closer to home it would be a wonderful place for the Lower Level. Then in what seemed to have been a kind of kitchen garden, they discovered a weathered trash heap, that when prodded by sharp sticks yielded old purpling bottles and a rusty dinner fork. Not far from the trash heap there was a stone bench, and Martha and Ivy sat down on it facing the house while Josie wandered around digging little holes with the bent fork.

Staring up at the ruin, Martha imagined what it must have looked like once. A tall old-fashioned house with fancy carved trim and two or maybe three stories of high thin windows. Then without planning to, she started imagining it another way, with thin tongues of flame licking out of all the windows and springing up through the roof in huge red hands against the sky.

Suddenly Ivy asked, “Do you know the story of what happened here?”

“No,” Martha said. “I asked my mother about it, and she said it happened a long time ago. She said she’d heard something about it, but she couldn’t remember just what. Except that the same people own it who own the land around Bent Oaks. There’s an old man who won’t let anything be sold or changed.”

Ivy was quiet again for a while longer, and then she said, “Well, I know about it now. It belonged to a beautiful lady named Annabelle and her husband. It was a long time ago, and they were very rich. Annabelle had been the most beautiful girl for miles and miles, and she married a very handsome man and he built this house for her and gave her all sorts of beautiful jewels and clothes and servants and everything she asked for. After a few years they had three beautiful children. But Annabelle wasn’t happy because she was used to going to dances and parties all the time, and now she had to stay home with the babies while her husband went away to work. One day there was going to be a very important party at the king’s palace—”

“The
king’s
palace?” Martha said. “Here, in Rosewood Hills?”

“Well, maybe it was at the mayor’s house. Anyway, Annabelle wanted to go, but her husband had to go away on business, and he said she shouldn’t go without him.”

Martha interrupted again, “Who told you? Did your mother know about it?”

“No,” Ivy said. “My mother didn’t tell me. I think I heard about it somewhere a long time ago and I just started remembering. It just sort of came to me. Don’t things just sort of come to you sometimes?”

Martha considered. “Yes, I guess they do. I think it just came to me what happened next—to Annabelle, I mean.”

“What?” Ivy said.

“Well, Annabelle went off to the party without telling anyone, and in the night the fire started and—” she stopped, not quite sure she wanted to end it the way she was thinking.

“—and then Annabelle came back and the children were all dead, and the next day her hair turned snow white, and the next day she died.”

Martha nodded slowly, and they went on sitting there staring at the ruin for a long time. They came back, finally, through time and tragedy, to the sound of Josie’s chatter and the realization that the gray cold had reached almost to the center of their bones.

Martha turned to Ivy, and they both said, “Let’s go home,” in perfect unison.

But this time Josie didn’t want to go. She sat firmly on the ground with her chubby legs out in front of her, clutching the old fork and a bouquet of dead flowers. She scowled at them and refused to stand up. At last Ivy took the flowers and fork by force, and, grabbing her hands, Martha and Ivy pulled Josie to her feet and started down the hill. Josie wailed and struggled.

“I want my pretty flowers,” Josie sobbed.

Ivy sighed and looked back up the hill. “What do you want those old dead things for?” she asked.

“They’re not your flowers,” Martha said, trying another tack. “They don’t belong to us.”

“Yes they do, yes they do,” Josie said.

“They belong here, to this house. They belong to a beautiful dead lady.”

“No they don’t,” Josie said. “They belong to me. The lady gave them to me.”

Martha looked at Ivy, and Ivy’s nod meant that she was wondering the same thing.

“What lady, Josie?” Ivy asked.

“The lady you said,” Josie said. “The beautiful dead lady.”

“How do you know she was a dead lady?” Martha asked in a stiff voice that tightened into a gulp before she finished the sentence.

“She said she was,” Josie said. “She said she was the beautiful dead lady.”

“Did she have white hair?” Ivy asked.

Josie thought a minute and then nodded. “White,” she said, putting her hand on top of her head.

“What else did she say to you?”

“She said she was the beautiful dead lady, and I could have some flowers,” Josie said.

So Martha and Ivy went, very quickly and watchfully, back up the hill for the flowers; and then, all the way home, while Josie trudged happily along carrying the little dead bouquet, they walked just behind her, watching and wondering.

F
OR THE NEXT FEW
days Martha and Ivy talked a lot about the burned-out house and what had happened there, and for the next few days after that, they talked about going back. But before they got to the point of actually going, something else happened. Martha’s Grandmother Abbott sent money from Florida for all the Abbotts to fly down and spend Thanksgiving with her.

Of course it occurred to Martha that the whole controversy about her staying for a while with Grandmother in Florida might be renewed if she actually was there, right in Grandmother’s clutches. It was certainly a very great danger. And it had all happened so quickly that there was only one afternoon to discuss it with Ivy. She moaned to Ivy about her fear that she might have to stay.

“Well, don’t just sit there,” Ivy said. “Let’s do a spell again.”

“Again?” Martha said. “How?”

“With Josie. She saved you before.”

“I know but—she can’t give me the mumps again. I’ve already had them—on both sides.”

“I know. It wouldn’t be the same anyway, even if you could get mumps twice. Magic doesn’t do things the way you expect. If it did, it wouldn’t be magic.”

“I guess not. How do we do it this time?”

“Well, I’ll go home and get Josie. And you fix up the altar.” She called the last back over her shoulder as she started to run toward the trail.

“But how?” Martha called. “Wait. I don’t know how.”

Ivy stopped, but she didn’t come back. “You don’t need to know how. Just start doing it. You find out as you go along.”

When Ivy came back towing an out of breath Josie, Martha had made up an altar on the flat rock near Temple Tree. She had draped the rock first with the Mousehole Quilt, and then she had placed four sacred objects around the edges at the four points of the compass. There was the Crystal Globe to the South, the Golden Eye to the North, and East and West, Josie’s ivory wand and the silver bell.

“Very good, Ivy said when she saw the altar. She lifted Josie up and made her sit cross-legged in the center of the magic circle. Josie grinned happily. She loved ceremonies.

Ivy began by ringing the silver bell. Then Martha rang it, and finally Josie. While Josie went on ringing it long and hard, Ivy said, “We’ll need a chant. Let’s sit down like this and see if a good one will come to us. Keep on ringing the bell, Josie.” They sat down cross-legged and covered their eyes with their hands.

After a moment Martha said, “Maker of spells, hear our silver bell.”

Ivy nodded and shortly after added, “Ring a magic chain, to pull Martha home again.”

The chant was repeated over and over while Martha and Ivy walked backward around Josie and the altar. Next they breathed on the Golden Eye and held it to their hearts while they waved the magic wand. Finally they put the Golden Eye in one of Josie’s hands and the ivory wand in the other, and placed the Crystal Globe directly in front of her. “Now you look into the Globe while we sit here, and when you see that the spell is finished you can tell us.”

“Okay,” Josie said. Martha and Ivy sat down in front of the altar and covered their eyes, and in a very short time Josie said, “All finished.”

They looked up and Martha said, “Did the magic work? Is the spell going to work? Can you tell?”

She was really talking to Ivy, but Josie answered. She leaned forward until her nose almost touched the Globe and said, “Yes,” very definitely.

“Will Martha have to stay in Florida?” Ivy asked.

“No,” Josie said.

“How come?” Martha said. “Why won’t I have to stay?”

Josie leaned forward again and then sat up looking triumphant.

“Your mommy won’t let you,” she said.

Martha and Ivy had to giggle. It didn’t sound like a very magical reason. And it didn’t seem very likely, either. Martha’s mother had been all for the plan to send Martha away. It wouldn’t be like her to change her mind so completely.

So the Abbotts flew off to Florida, and almost right away Josie’s magic started working; although Martha didn’t realize at first that that was what it was. She didn’t blame herself very much, though. Nobody would recognize magic in two-toned shoes and a pinstriped suit.

The first thing Martha did notice that told her the magic was working was that her mother certainly was changing her mind. Suddenly she not only didn’t want Martha to stay in Florida, she didn’t even want Grandmother Abbott to stay. Usually Mrs. Abbott was not at all upset by her mother-in-law’s frequent visits to Florida, or to anyplace else. But this year she decided that that Grandmother just had to be in Rosewood for the holiday season. And Martha’s father seemed to agree. In fact they agreed so unusually well that they finally talked Grandmother into closing her apartment and coming back with them to Rosewood Hills.

Ivy had explained that magic worked in unexpected ways and she was certainly right. This time it was so unexpected that Martha might never have known just what was happening if she hadn’t overheard a conversation between Tom and Cath. The three of them were lying on the beach, and Martha was pretending to be asleep, with her face under a big sun hat.