Enchanted Ivy (10 page)

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for a class she hadn't even been taking. She glanced down again at Jake, wondering if he could tell how well she was doing. He snapped a photo with his camera phone and then gave her a thumbs-up sign.

The ape continued. "Once, our two worlds were separate, but three hundred years ago, a gate was opened between our worlds. A golden era began that lasted nearly a century. Hundreds traveled freely between the two worlds, exchanging knowledge and culture. Princeton University was founded to facilitate this exchange." He paused as if picturing the shiny goldenness of this "golden era," and then he heaved a sigh that shuddered through his stone body. "But then, due to fear and ignorance on both sides, the gate was suddenly and irrevocably closed with disastrous consequences. Humans, trapped in the magic world, weakened and died. Magic creatures trapped here either died, became gargoyles, or became Feeders. And so it was ... until the first Key was discovered."

Beneath her, the stone stilled.

"So, where can I find this key?" Lily asked.

No answer.

"Professor Ape?"

Silence.

She knocked on the back of the gargoyle. "Excuse me? Hello? Where do I go next?"

Below her, Jake called up, "Incoming--twelve o'clock!"

Lily looked up and saw a security guard jogging toward the gym. She bet he wasn't going to like the explanation that

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she was up here to talk with a gargoyle. "Jake? Remember how you're going to keep me from splatting on the pavement?"

He positioned himself beneath the Literate Ape. Lily swung her legs off the gargoyle. She tried not to think about the cement sidewalk below. She wrapped her arms around the ape's neck and lowered herself down. Her toes touched Jake's shoulders, and he gripped her calves.

"Got me?" she asked.

He grunted in response.

She released the gargoyle. For an instant, she dropped. But then Jake's arms tightened around her legs, and she slid straight down into the circle of his arms. Her feet touched the sidewalk, and she looked into the very blue eyes of the very gorgeous boy who was now holding her tightly against his chest. "Knight in shining armor," she said.

He widened his eyes.

She heard the security guard shout, "You! Stop!"

"You promised you weren't going to get me into trouble," he said, his arms still around her.

"Technically, you're only in trouble if you're caught," she said as the security guard neared. "How about we run?"

"Good idea," he said.

Together, they ran.

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CHAPTER Five

"He's not following," Jake reported.

Under the shade of a fir tree, Lily stopped. She bent over, hands on her knees, and caught her breath. They'd sprinted up a hill and past another Reunions tent to a path surrounded by fake wilderness. The trees, shrubs, and vines were staggered to resemble a bit of forest, but unlike a real forest, they'd been carefully trimmed and circled with mulch.

"You were amazing!" Jake said. "Most people panic the first time they talk with the Literate Ape. But you ... you took it in stride! He even seemed to like you." He was regarding her as if she'd flown solo across the Atlantic without an airplane.

Lily felt her cheeks heat up. "Uh, thanks," she said. She hadn't done anything so special. Certainly nothing to warrant that expression on his face. "I just ... want to pass." Closest she'd ever gotten to seeing that expression on a guy's face was when she'd dumped a container of chocolate milk directly on

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Melissa Grayson's head after Melissa had called Lily's mom a loony. She'd gotten applause and then a chat with the school psychologist. But that had been second grade. If it happened now, most of her high school class would agree with Melissa, and no amount of chocolate milk would change that. At least Lily's mom didn't vacation in Hawaii without her or fail to show up to parent-teacher conferences due to a manicure appointment like Melissa's oh-so-perfect mother.

"You really might pass!" Jake said.

"Your confidence in me is overwhelming," she said drily.

"I'm sorry," he said. "But most don't. Most can't handle it."

"You did, right?" she asked.

"Of course," he said.

He didn't elaborate, so she walked forward down the winding path. It opened onto a manicured garden of red and yellow tulips. Strips of flower beds curved into a shieldlike shape. Green blanketed the space between the tulips, and in the center was a fountain with candy blue water and a sculpture of a half horse, half man. Sunlight bathed the tulips so the petals glowed.
Mom would love this,
Lily thought. She should bring her here.

Or maybe Mom had already been here. She'd mentioned a tulip garden with a fountain. This place, like the Chained Dragon on the chapel, could be somehow lodged in Mom's memory. "Where are we?" Lily asked.

"Prospect Gardens," Jake said. "Straight ahead is the student union, and beyond that are the eating clubs. To our

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right are dorms. To our left, Firestone Library, the chapel, East Pyne, Nassau Hall. You have your next clue?"

Unfortunately, she didn't. She knew that Feeders were bad and that the Old Boys liked Dungeons & Dragons a bit too much, but she didn't know what she was supposed to do next. She couldn't admit that with Jake still beaming at her, though, so she dodged the question instead. "Did you talk to gargoyles in your test?"

"Oh, yes, but I spent the entire conversation with Professor Ape searching for a speaker and microphone," Jake said. "I even pried up a flagstone in the walk below. Grandpa subtracted the repair cost from my trust fund."

"Oh." She tried to imagine cavalierly tossing around words like "trust fund" and couldn't. "Your grandfather didn't help you?"

"It wouldn't have been ethical," he said.

"Right. Sorry."

Side by side, they circled through the garden. Ringed with evergreens, the flower beds were half in the shadows. Tulips swayed in a breathlike breeze.

"Grandpa did train me," Jake said. "Pop quizzes over breakfast on the prior night's homework, martial arts classes since age four, summer trips to Europe with enough museums to put an artist to sleep. He wanted to ensure that I had a chance at a future here. Failure wasn't an option for him or for me."

She thought of Mom. If passing this test would keep

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Mom from slipping away--if walking through fire would keep Mom from slipping away--Lily would do it. "Not so much an option for me, either."

"Yeah, I get that."

Their eyes met, and Jake smiled. She smiled back.

Voices carried across the garden as a string of chattering and laughing students passed by and then exited. A couple holding hands strolled after them, pausing for a photo in front of the yellow and red tulips.

"So, where to?" Jake asked.

She thought for a moment. She didn't know where to find the Key, but she
did
know what the Key (supposedly) opened. The Literate Ape had talked about a gate, and there was only one famous gate here: the entrance to Princeton, the gate that no student ever walked out through. It would be just like the Old Boys to pick the most ornate, most famous gate on campus as their special gate. "This way," she said.

Lily headed up a set of stone steps. Jake followed her behind a row of manicured bushes to a rose garden. She saw red and yellow and soft pink buds. Only one or two had begun to open their petals. At home, Mom had coaxed all their roses into bloom already. She claimed her success was due to the fact that she sang to them. Lily credited the skylights that turned their apartment into a greenhouse. As soon as her test was over, she'd bring Mom to this garden. Maybe it would stir up memories of Dad. The memories couldn't be gone forever,

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could they? There had to be some way to bring them back.

"Do you like it here?" Lily asked. "At Princeton, I mean."

"Love it," he said. "I can't picture myself anywhere else. I think I was a prefrosh from birth. My grandfather used to sing me Princeton songs instead of lullabies. I have these clear memories of him tucking me in while belting out a fight song. ... I know it sounds corny, but I always felt this was, like, my destiny."

"Not corny at all," she murmured. She thought of her grandpa singing Princeton songs in the flower shop on slow days.

Up ahead, she saw a familiar road. She'd walked this way before--the campus road led to the chapel and library plaza. She picked up her pace, weaving among members of a marching band dressed in orange and black plaid and wearing straw hats. As she crossed the plaza in front of the chapel, she imagined returning to Grandpa and Mom with the news that she'd passed. She'd be able to make Mom happy, a semimiraculous feat.

Up on the arch over the chapel door, she spotted the Chained Dragon. Nestled in the stone greenery, he was the size of a terrier, curved into a backward
S
with bat wings splayed flat against his back. A thick stone chain was carved around his neck. One of his talons clutched the chain.

Scale for scale, Mom had drawn him exactly. She'd even captured the sad, lonely look in the dragon's puppy-dog eyes. How had Mom remembered this carving so precisely when

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she couldn't even remember Lily's father's face? Of all the things to remember, why this?

Lily didn't realize she'd stopped walking until Jake burst out, "You can't be ready to talk to him!"

Both of her eyebrows shot up. So ... the Chained Dragon was another rigged gargoyle, like the Literate Ape. Perhaps Mom's subconscious had given her a clue. "Why not?" she asked.

"Did Professor Ape tell you about the dragon?" Jake asked. He seemed agitated. "Anything about his history? You can't talk to him yet!"

She guessed she was meant to approach the dragon much later in the test. Skipping ahead sounded good to her, though. She could finish the test early and then join Grandpa and Mom for P-rade on Saturday as planned. "What about his history?" she asked.

"I ... I can't tell you." He clearly wanted to talk. His thoughts played across his face. She watched his forehead crinkle and uncrinkle. His lips started to form words and then pressed together as if he were physically holding back the words as they tried to escape his mouth.

"It's okay," Lily said. "You don't have to tell me anything. I'll figure it out." If she wasn't supposed to talk to the dragon yet, then all the Old Boys had to do was tell the guy running the audio setup not to respond. But maybe, just maybe, they'd slip up and she'd have a shortcut to the end of this ridiculous test.

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Lily marched toward the steps of the chapel. The second her foot touched the first step, she saw a stone tongue flick out of the dragon's mouth.

She halted. That had looked very realistic.

Jake caught her arm. "You don't have to do this," he said. "We can return to Professor Ape. Ask him about your next clue. It can't be the dragon. He can't be part of your test." If she didn't know better, she'd say he was genuinely freaked out by this sculpture. "He's saved for late in the training. Seniors face him. Not candidates.
I
haven't spoken to him yet."

Jake really seemed to believe what he was saying. She hadn't expected him to be such a good actor. The Old Boys must have prepped him well. She was positive now that she was on to something. "I need to get close," she said. Like with the Literate Ape, she bet the gargoyle would talk once she was close enough that no one could overhear.

Unlike with the Literate Ape, she didn't see a convenient window above the gargoyle. The ribbon of carvings that included the dragon was recessed within the arch. She'd need to reach it from below, ideally with a ladder.

Climbing the stone steps, she entered the chapel antechamber. She glimpsed the chapel's nave through the inner doors. Rows of wood pews stretched to the distant altar. Stone pillars soared to the vaulted ceiling. Everything was bathed in a soft blue light from hundreds of stained-glass windows. She wondered if Mom would remember this

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if she saw it. She promised herself to bring Mom here too, after the test was over.

Lily scanned the antechamber for anything resembling a ladder. Beside the open doors to the chapel was a marble staircase with a red velvet rope stretched across it and a sign that read BALCONY CLOSED. Leaning beside it was a black metal folding chair.
Good enough,
she thought. She fetched the chair and brought it back outside.

"Can you watch for security?" she asked Jake. "Ward off any paparazzi or whatever?"

"Only if you promise me you won't get too close," Jake said as she set up the chair underneath the arch. "You have to be careful."

"It's stone," she said. "I won't hurt it."

"If you look in danger, I'll knock you off the chair."

Lily blinked at him. He seemed 100 percent sincere. "You should win an Oscar," she told him. He was fully immersed in this role-playing game, treating the gargoyles as if they weren't robots or puppets ... except he had gotten the story mixed up. The Literate Ape had said the gargoyles were the good guys. "I'll be fine." She stepped onto the chair.

A foot down from the gargoyle's tail, she looked up into the dragon's mournful eyes.
"Free me,"
a voice whispered. His voice was so faint that she rose onto her tiptoes to hear. The stone tongue darted in and out again.
"Free me,"
the dragon repeated.

His voice was snakelike. Shivers walked over Lily's skin.