Enchanted Ivy (7 page)

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"It saved your life," Mr. Mayfair said. Lily gawked at him, but Grandpa didn't wait for her to digest that extraordinary statement.

He scowled at his oldest friend. "How could this happen? Your security--"

Mr. Mayfair spread his hands. "Perhaps you should take her home--"

"Or perhaps you should assign a guard," Grandpa interrupted.

Lily spoke up. "My guard has the creature pinned down in the East Pyne courtyard. But I don't know how long he can hold it. He needs help. He didn't want me to call 911...." Both men were staring at her. She trailed off. "What?"

Mr. Mayfair and Grandpa exchanged looks, and Mr. Mayfair said, "We didn't assign a guard."

"He said--," Lily began.

"Did he tell you his name?" Mr. Mayfair asked.

"His name's Tye," Lily said. "He has orange and black hair. Light-colored eyes. He said he was my guard. He knew Grandpa's name."

"Of course he did," Mr. Mayfair said, half to himself. To Lily, he said, "That boy cannot be trusted."

Lily looked from Grandpa to Mr. Mayfair and back to Grandpa. "But he saved me," she said. "He pulled the creature off me. It clawed him. He's hurt and waiting for help."

"I know this is upsetting," Mr. Mayfair said kindly. "You should know that you can stop this test at any time."

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Lily opened her mouth to reply, but Grandpa beat her to it. "She cannot," Grandpa said. "This is her destiny. She was born for this."

Lily shut her mouth.

Grandpa smiled at her. "I promised your mother years ago that you would have this chance." And then his smile faded. "I need to check on Rose. If Lily was targeted--"

"You left her alone?" Lily looked around. She'd expected Mom to be nearby.

Grandpa nodded wearily. "She's in the room. She claimed she'd stay." For an instant, Lily thought,
He's old.
She had never seen him before as old, but now she noticed that the wrinkles on his cheeks were as deep as creases in a walnut shell. To Mr. Mayfair, he said, "Lily needs a guard. Could you--"

Mr. Mayfair squeezed Grandpa's shoulder. "You don't even have to ask. I'll see that she's taken care of."

"Thank you," Grandpa said gravely. He kissed Lily on the top of her head and then strode toward one of the gothic dorms.

Lily started after him. "Wait!" She should help him with Mom. But Tye also needed her. ... "Tye's expecting me," she said to Mr. Mayfair. "I'd planned to bring Grandpa."

Mr. Mayfair beckoned to a clump of college boys. One, a blond, broke away from the pack and walked across the tent. Under any other circumstances, Lily would have been content to stare and stare. He was angelically beautiful: perfect blond hair, piercing blue eyes, and a Superman cleft

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chin. She half expected sunlight to burst through the tent in a halo around him and a heavenly chorus to swell in song. He was that perfect. Introducing him, Mr. Mayfair said, "My grandson, Jake. Jake, this is Lily Carter."

Jake smiled at her, the kind of smile that could make daffodils burst into full bloom. "Nice to meet you," he said. His voice was as warm as summer sun.

"Hi," she squeaked.
Snap out of it,
she told herself. He was just a cute boy. Okay, a godlike boy. She couldn't let that distract her from the fact that she'd been attacked by a monkey-thing and that Tye was waiting for her to return with the cavalry.

"Jake, Miss Carter encountered a Feeder," Mr. Mayfair said. "She'll lead you to the attack site in East Pyne."

Feeder.
That thing had a name.

"Dispose of the Feeder and stay by Miss Carter for the remainder of her test. Don't interfere or aid her with her test, but do see to it that she remains safe from bodily harm. Understood?"

"Yes, sir," Jake said. The "sir" was not the least bit ironic. Lily had the sense that if they weren't in public, he would have clicked his heels and saluted.

"The tiger boy will be there," Mr. Mayfair continued. "I'd like to ask him a few questions."

Jake nodded. "He'll be taken in."

The way Jake said it sounded almost ominous, as if Tye would be in an interrogation room with a single bare

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lightbulb. Lily frowned and opened her mouth to object.

"Respectfully," Mr. Mayfair said. "He saved our candidate here. We owe him a debt." He favored Lily with a warm and reassuring smile. Lily smiled back, very glad that he'd been here with Grandpa.

"Consider it done," Jake said. To Lily, he asked, "Ready?"

She still had about three billion unanswered questions, but she nodded anyway. Liar or not, Tye needed help as soon as possible. Her questions could wait. "Thank you," she said to Mr. Mayfair.

"You're most welcome, my dear," he said.

"Tell Grandpa to call me if he needs help with Mom," she said.

Leading the way, Jake wove through the crowded tent. Lily followed behind. Once they exited the fenced-in area, Jake broke into a jog. She hurried to catch up. Her side cramped almost instantly.

In a perfectly conversational tone, as if they weren't running, Jake asked, "How are you enjoying your visit to Princeton?"

He had to be joking. "What's a Feeder?" she asked.

"I'm not at liberty to discuss that," he said. He smiled at her as if to say it was nothing personal. The smile made her heart do a little flip inside her rib cage. "I'm not supposed to aid or interfere."

"It
attacked
me," she said. Her calf muscles burned as they trotted across the campus road and headed toward Nassau

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Hall. "I think I have a right to know what it is." She pointed at East Pyne. "They're in the courtyard."

"Stay behind me," Jake said, picking up speed. "You're not trained."

"Trained for what?" Lily asked.

He ran through the arch first. She raced after him and then bumped into his back as he abruptly stopped. "Sorry!" she said. She peeked around him. The courtyard was silent and peaceful ... and empty.

The Feeder was gone.

So was Tye.

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CHAPTER Four

Jake knelt next to the torn and mangled leaves. He fingered a battered vine.

"Careful," Lily warned. "The vines ... well, they moved. Like snakes." She winced as she said it. It sounded so ridiculous. But she'd seen them writhe and watched them cocoon that Feeder thing.

He frowned at the ivy. "Dryad? What did the Feeder look like?"

"Green hairless monkey," she said. "Did you say 'dryad'? As in Greek myths?" She thought of the library book by her father.

"Can't be," he said. "Not with that description. Are you certain the vines moved?"

A knot of shredded ivy lay beside an indent in the soil. The vines looked like a cocoon ripped open. Ragged greenery was strewn about. "I didn't imagine it!" she said.

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And she certainly hadn't imagined a dryad.

He held up his hands, palms out. "I believe you."

"Sorry," she said. She hadn't meant to yell. But the creature had been real. She hadn't had a brain hiccup. Lily touched the bite marks on her shoulder to reassure herself and winced again as they stung. The creature must have escaped, and Tye must have chased after it. She pictured it barging through a Reunions tent filled with toddlers and grandfathers. "We have to find them." She spun in a circle, as if she'd see a clue as to which direction they'd run.

Jake smiled.

"It's not funny," she said. "Tye could be hurt. An innocent bystander could be hurt."

"I'm sorry," he said, smile disappearing. The tips of his ears turned pink. She stared, awed that she had made this golden boy blush. "It's only ... I like your attitude. That's all."

She continued to stare. She was more used to people telling her she needed an attitude adjustment.

"You don't have to worry about the Feeder, though," Jake said. "We have teams to chase it." He pulled out a phone and flipped it open.

"You have teams?" Lily asked. This happened often enough to need
teams
? Like intramural sports? Varsity creature-chasing?

"Got a code thirteen, last seen in East Pyne courtyard." He closed the phone, flashed her his megawatt smile, and said, "See? All set. You can continue your test."

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She couldn't just resume her test as though nothing was wrong. Tye was missing, and that thing was still out there! She didn't know these "teams." How did she know they'd take this seriously? "It's not like I encountered some overly aggressive squirrel. It wore clothes."

"It will be taken care of," he said. "Trust me."

He had the most trustworthy face she'd ever seen. It was like being told "you're safe" by a superhero. He must have inherited that aura of competence from his grandfather. Still ... "You sound like this happens all the time," she said.

He hesitated, and his forehead crinkled as if he were thinking very, very hard about how to answer. "Not all the time," he said at last. "Everyone's test is different. I've never heard of a Feeder attack as part of the test, but it would be too much of a coincidence otherwise."

Lily gaped at him as she tried to wrap her mind around what he'd just said and everything that it implied. "This was
intentional
?" she said. She thought of Mr. Mayfair's and Grandpa's reactions, more concerned about her guard than the creature that attacked her. She thought of how Tye had said that the Feeder had wanted Lily, not him. What the hell kind of test was this? Ordinary admissions tests didn't include mutant monkeys. The SATs didn't bite. "I could have been seriously hurt," she said. If Tye hadn't been there ...

"I'll make sure no other Feeder bothers you," Jake promised.

"There are
more
of those things out there?" She thought

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of how Grandpa had left to check on Mom. Maybe he hadn't been worried about Mom's usual flightiness. Maybe he'd been worried about Mom's encountering a Feeder. Lily pulled out her cell phone and dialed Mom's number. No answer. She tried Grandpa's. No answer either. "I have to check on my mother," she said.

"Hey," Jake said as she hurried out of the courtyard. She heard him jogging to catch up to her. "What about your test?"

Screw the test,
she thought. If Mom was in any danger because of Lily's test ... If creatures like that were loose on the campus because of her test ... If Vineyard Club was responsible for allowing vicious, unnatural creatures to roam around in highly populated areas because of her test ... She hadn't agreed to that. "Admissions tests shouldn't involve blood," she said. She'd fill out an application form and submit her essays just like everyone else. She had a decent shot at getting in on her own merit, right?

"You're safe now," he said, "and so's your mom. Your grandfather is with her--he was heading for the dorm, wasn't he? You don't have to worry."

Lily snorted. That was like saying,
Hey, you don't have to breathe today.
"She doesn't travel much," she said, a massive understatement. They should never have brought Mom here. "She's used to her and me being together." Mom rarely left the triple-decker that was their home. She worked on the first floor in the flower shop, Grandpa lived on the

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second floor in his antique-laden apartment, and Mom and Lily lived on the third floor (the attic, really). They'd made it into their sanctuary and filled it with items that made Mom feel safe. The apartment was littered with art: leftovers from Mom's pottery phase (they had a shelf full of lopsided vases), her mosaic phase (she'd retiled the bathroom to resemble a Turkish bath), and her mobile phase (they'd hung a dozen spiraling mobiles of birds and sailboats and kites). Skylights flooded the apartment with sunlight, and every shelf, table, and windowsill held plants. Morning glories crawled over their kitchen window, and a miniature rose garden covered the entire dining room table. Without all of that, Lily knew that Mom wouldn't feel safe here, but she'd never thought that Mom actually wouldn't
be
safe here. Lily walked faster. "My mom takes care of me. Like any other mom. But I also take care of her. That's how it works. I have to check on her." And if her Legacy Test had endangered Mom, then she'd quit.

Maybe she should quit anyway. The Old Boys were clearly deranged, and Lily hadn't signed up to play head games. She wondered if they'd planted Dad's book to mess with her, too. Maybe he hadn't written it. She wondered if Mom would know.

"No one can fault you for caring about your mother," Jake said. "I'm sure the officers won't penalize you for deviating from the test." He didn't sound confident, and for an instant, Lily wondered if she was being overly anxious. Mom was

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