Enchanted Ivy by Sarah Beth Durst

Author:Sarah Beth Durst
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2011-09-09T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER Nine

Mom wasn't human.

Grandpa had lied to her. He'd lied about things so basic that Lily didn't even know how to process the information. She leaned heavily against the stairwell wall.

"Lily?" Jake said.

At least now she had an answer to how she'd survived: Grandpa hadn't fed her and Mom medicine; he'd fed them magic. Her stomach lurched. "I think I'm going to be sick." Lily clapped her hands over her mouth, and she barreled past Jake up the stairs. She ran under the eyes of the oil paintings and past the hidden compartments, the grand piano, and the marble fireplace. With Jake jogging behind her, she burst out the front door of the club.

Outside, she fell to her knees on the grass. Amber light from the setting sun poured over the back of her neck, and she heard the whispered voices of the lawn and the trees and the bushes. She buried her fingers in the grass. Green blades curled around her knuckles and crooned to her. Her chest loosened, and she could breathe again.

She heard Jake on the path behind her. "Lily, are you all right?" he asked.

"No, I'm not all right!" None of this was "all right." The woman she'd spent every day of her life with was a dryad, and her grandfather—the bedrock of her life—had intentionally lied to her about all of it. "I trusted him! Believed in him!"

"Who?" Jake asked.

"My grandfather, the liar," she said.

"Your grandfather is a noble man," Jake said. "A hero—"

Lily interrupted him. "You barely know him." She wondered how well she even knew him. Wrapped around her fingers, the grass squeezed tighter.

Jake squatted beside her. "Lily, are you okay?" He sounded concerned, as if he hadn't been the one to push her away on the chapel plaza. Since when did he care? She was the "monster," wasn't she?

"I'm not going to puke on you, if that's what you're worried about," Lily said.

"I'm not ... I didn't mean ...," he said. He reminded her of a puppy who'd had his nose smacked. She felt a twinge of guilt. Jake wasn't the one who had turned her world inside out and upside down and then (for good measure) shaken it vigorously.

She unwound her fingers from the grass. The blades continued to rub against her like kittens that wanted to be petted. Lily thought of how Mom always treated the plants in the flower shop like pets. She'd coo and croon to the roses and daisies. Lily felt a hysterical laugh bubble up in her throat, and she choked it back.

"Do you ... Are you feeling better?" Jake asked.

"My mom ...," she began. She stopped. "I need to talk to Grandpa. Is the battle over?"

He shot a look at the sidewalk. "Shh!"

After all the lies, for them to expect her to care about protecting their secrets ... She saw Jake's expression, and she sighed. "Sorry," she said. "It's not your fault that my home life is even more messed up than I'd thought." She wondered how much of the truth Mom knew, or remembered.

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