Ivory Apples by Lisa Goldstein

Author:Lisa Goldstein [Goldstein, Lisa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Fantasy, Contemporary, Urban, Magical Realism
ISBN: 9781616962982
Google: dT8kugEACAAJ
Amazon: B07RM3MK9B
Publisher: Tachyon Publications
Published: 2019-08-14T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 17

A FEW DAYS LATER I went back to my old house and looked around again, but nothing seemed to have changed. I’d come prepared with a few large shopping bags, and I packed away our birth certificates and other important documents.

As I was leaving, locking the front door, someone behind me called out: “Hey, can I talk to you?”

I turned quickly. It was the blond man, the one I’d thought had been following me on the streets. Now he was standing on the front path to the house. I looked left and right, but the lawn was too overgrown to escape through.

“I just want to ask a few questions,” he said. “I promise.”

Ms. Burden had promised things too. Still, I thought, I might as well talk to him, as long as I took precautions. Maybe he could tell me where she was, what she was doing.

“Okay,” I said. “But out in public somewhere. A coffeeshop or something.”

“Sure,” he said.

We went to a place where I used to go with my family. The moment we walked in I realized I should have picked somewhere else. I was surrounded by old memories: the first time Philip let me have a taste of hard cider, the time Beatriz had fallen and knocked out two of her baby teeth.

We got coffee and found a table, and I settled all my shopping bags around me like a bag lady. “So,” I said. I was determined to go first, to take the advantage and keep it. “Where is she?”

“Who?” he asked.

“Who do you think? Your friend, Ms. Burden.”

He looked puzzled at that. “She isn’t my friend. In fact, I’m looking for her too.”

“What? Why? Who are you?”

“Who are you?”

“Oh, no—you first,” I said. “You’re the one who wants something from me. And why do you look so familiar? Where do I know you from?”

“Very well. You don’t know me, not really.”

“Oh, yeah? Then why do I—”

“It’s your muse. He recognizes mine.”

I sat back. All the advantage had passed to him effortlessly, as if he’d won a chess match while I was still admiring the pieces. “They—they can do that?”

He nodded.

“How did you find me?”

“Let me tell it, all right? You can ask questions later. I’m Craig.”

“Ivy.”

“Well, then. I met Ms. Burden, Kate, in Greece. This was—let’s see—I think five years ago. I was at a hotel in Athens, and we were the only people eating breakfast by ourselves, so we started talking. There was a lot of back and forth, each of us feeling the other out, but finally she told me why she was there. She’d rented a car and was going to drive to Mount Helicon and make an offering to the muses.”

“An—an offering?”

“Yeah. Some people think that helps, that they’ll pay more attention to you if you give them something.”

“But—I never did that with Piper. I didn’t even know about the muses then, about what they do. He just slammed into me, took over my life. Anyway, I don’t think they’re interested in things, in objects.

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