Of Giants and Ice (Ever Afters, The) (5 page)

Third grade, in general, wasn’t the best year.

Mom immediately put me in counseling. Dad tried to make a joke out of the articles, saying “No press is bad press.” And he started calling me “Princess” at every opportunity.

“Rory? Are you there?”

“I’m here. You sound tired.”

Production was always really tough on him. He was usually
planning before everyone else got up, directing during the day, and reviewing takes after everyone went to bed.

“I am. Your old man is getting
old
.”

I rolled my eyes, smiling a little. He was only thirty-six. “Are you at home?”

Across the kitchen, Mom and Amy exchanged glances. I kicked myself for choosing that word. They always felt guilty when I called L.A. “home,” but I hadn’t really thought of it that way for a while. It was where Dad lived, that’s all.

I jumped off the chair and walked over to the couch to give myself a little privacy.

“Nah. Still in Thailand. I’ve got a shoot in New Zealand in eight days. Anyway, it didn’t make sense to fly all the way home and all the way back and miss a few days of quality sleep. Hey, Rory. You’re done with school in June, aren’t you?”

“I think so. Why?”

“Well, I’ve got another shoot then. In Oxford. Did you want to come?”

“Um. . .” Dad got three weeks of custody every summer, and I always looked forward to seeing him. But visiting during a shoot was
never
a good idea.

“You
love
England! Remember? You were in second grade and I took you to Harrods. I said you could pick out one toy in the whole store, so you picked out the
biggest
teddy bear you could find. We had to ship it home because the airline wouldn’t check it.”

“That was kindergarten, not second grade.” He was making me sound like a baby.

Dad went on like I hadn’t said anything. That’s how he gets when he’s excited. And he actually thinks that I’ll
love
everything. “Listen, this shoot—you’ll love it! It’s a modern take on Narnia. There
will be a bunch of other kids around, and the actress attached to the project, Brianna Catcher. You’ve heard of her, right? Redhead, real sweet and spunky? You’ll love her.”

If I went to this shoot, it would be a disaster—just like the shoot I visited two spring breaks ago. I had spent most of it tucked in an empty corner of the studio, headphones in, a book in my lap.

“I’d have to think about it.” That was what I usually said when I was really leaning toward
no
but didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.

“Okay, honey. Think it over.” Dad said, a little subdued. “Rory, really, you’ll love Oxford in June. All the gardens are in bloom. I’ll have my assistant schedule in a few days so we can explore together. We’ll rent bikes. You love bikes—”

If Dad told me what I loved one more time, I would scream. I had to interrupt him before he got too carried away. “Dad, I haven’t said yes.”

“Well, not yet, but—”

Suddenly, Mom stood over me, thin-lipped. I knew what that look meant. “Let me talk to him.”

“Uh, Dad. Mom wants to say something. I love you,” I said quickly, just a half second before she snatched the phone from my hand.

As soon as I let go, I knew I had done the wrong thing.

I half-reached for the phone, trying to grab it back, but Mom had already turned away. Then the fight began, just like I knew it would.

“Don’t
bully
her.” Mom stalked down the hall toward her room, kicking off her shoes so violently that they thunked against the wall. “It’s not about visitation rights. It’s about whether or not she wants to go.”

Wait. Let me talk to him again,
I wanted to say, but the words were trapped in my mouth.

“Don’t you dare call your lawyer, Eric. You’re just pitching a fit, because you may not get your way.” Then she closed the door behind her, and I couldn’t hear her anymore.

“At least this house has thicker walls than the last place we rented.” Amy pointed at my abandoned math textbook with a wooden spoon stained spaghetti-sauce red. “Don’t you have homework?”

I slid off the couch and returned to the stool silently. What could I say? Amy already wasn’t Dad’s hugest fan. I wasn’t going to give her another reason to not like him.

Besides, he didn’t
mean
to bully. He just gets so excited sometimes that he forgets to listen. “Don’t take no for an answer,” he often told me, back when we all still lived together. This was a great quality for a director to have, but not so much for a dad.

I imagined going to Mom’s door. Demanding the phone back. Telling Dad no.

But I couldn’t force myself off the stool. I just copied out the next math problem.

I knew how easily I could make it worse. What if I asked and Mom wouldn’t even give me the phone? Even worse, what if she
did
give me the phone? And what if I lost my nerve the second Dad started talking? What if I
still
couldn’t tell him no? Then the whole thing would happen all over again—an even bigger mess than before.

So, I just curled lower over my homework, trying to breathe normally around a dragon-size knot in my chest.

“Hey,” Amy said softly.

I looked up from the flames I was doodling in the margin of my
notebook. When I met her eyes, I knew she had guessed exactly what I was thinking.

“Read my mind.”

“I know.” I sighed. She always told me the same thing. “It’s not my fault.”

But even though I said it, I didn’t actually believe it. My parents wouldn’t argue half so much if I could just
speak up
.

“That’s right,” Amy said, “and also, sometimes, parents need to grow up even more than kids do.”

I forced a smile and nodded.

Mom’s door swung open, and she came running out in her monkey pajamas. She hadn’t taken her makeup off, but her hair had weird lumps and tufts.

Next came the hardest part of the whole disaster—the part where we pretend it didn’t happen.

“Okay, how was Ever After School?” Mom hopped on the stool beside me, and even the fake smile dropped off my face.

It was my cue to pick up right where I left off.

I wanted to
do
something. To rip my math notebook to shreds, or to burst into tears, or at least to ask Mom what Dad had said. Anything would be better than being trapped like this. It was like their hidden concern pinned me to my seat, but their fake cheer wouldn’t let me talk about it.

Unfortunately, I knew from experience that my outbursts could upset Mom for days.

“It was fine,” I said.

“Did you take any classes?” Mom asked. “Ms. White said there would be a fencing class! I thought you would like that.”

Memories of the afternoon came rushing back: the dragon’s yellow eyes, the heat of the flames, and the run up a slippery slope
of gold coins. I missed the lair. At least
there
, I had something to fight. “There were swords.”

But when I remembered swinging the sword and feeling it hit something, the pressure in my chest drained away.

At least I had done one thing right.

That is, if I hadn’t gone crazy and imagined the whole thing.

“Were the other kids mean to you?”

Who wants to bet we have a screamer?
Chase had said. “Not really.”

“Did you make any friends?”

“Yeah, I think so.” Lena
had
risked coming back to a dragon-infested valley to help me.

Amy sighed. She always got exasperated when Mom beat around the bush. “But the real question is, do you want to go back there tomorrow?”

She had no idea it was a life-or-death decision.

Well, I couldn’t tell them
now
. That was the quickest way to get Mom to call Dad back and accuse him of upsetting me so much that I started making up crazy stories.

But should I go back?

It hadn’t exactly been fun, but for a couple hours, I stopped wondering if I was doing the right thing or worrying about what people thought of Maggie Wright and Eric Landon’s only child. If there was even a
chance
that I could take a break from being the daughter of my famous parents, nothing could keep me from going back.

“Absolutely,” I said finally.

Mom and Amy smiled.

•  •  •

The first weird dream came that night. I mean, I’ve had nightmares before. They usually come after stressful situations or after
eating Amy’s spicy enchilada casserole, but this was different. This dream was very clear and very still—as if someone had paused a scene in a movie and placed me inside it.

I dreamed of a door in a dark corridor. It was made of ancient black wood, old and solid, cracked in the corners and bound with rusting iron bars. The only decoration was by the keyhole. A silver, scrolling
S
was welded into the iron. From the bottom hung a delicate snowflake so sharply pointed that it looked like it could cut you. In the dream, I knew I had to go through the door, and I was afraid of what was waiting on the other side.

he next day, after school, the bronze nameplate still read,
Ever After School
, which I took to be a
very
good sign for my sanity.

With a deep breath, I knocked.

No one answered.

I knocked again, three smart taps, as loud as I could make them.

Still no answer.

I wiped my hands on my jeans nervously. Maybe it was a one-day ticket deal. Maybe dragon-slaying filled the adventure quota for one student, and I wasn’t allowed to come back. Maybe I
had
hit my head on something and hallucinated the whole thing.

After one last knock, I turned away from the door and stepped glumly down the short stairway, wondering if maybe they just didn’t like me—if they were too busy to remember that I was coming.

I stopped. Maybe they
were
just busy. Ellie couldn’t wait by the door for every student—she probably only did that on your first day.

When I went back and tried the door, the knob turned easily. I took a deep breath and hoped that I hadn’t made it up, especially since that would make this breaking and entering. Then I stepped inside.

It was the same hallway, still too dark to see clearly. I ran to the other end with one hand on the wall, feeling ridges and shapes in the stone under my fingers, more excited with every step.

Outside, I got my first good look around.

Definitely
real.

The grassy courtyard was even bigger than it had seemed the day before. It was about the size of a football field and lined with dozens of doors surrounding the perimeter—plain doors, carved doors, glass doors, windowed doors, doors with knockers, doors without, a couple metal doors like you see with elevators, and even one that looked like it was made out of marble. EAS’s decorator must have really liked the rainbow theme, because each door was a different color.

Every once in a while, a door would open, and a kid or two would come out. Most of them made straight for the middle of the courtyard, where everyone was gathering.

The Tree of Hope looked exactly the same. Its low branches were covered with bookbags, jackets, and raincoats.

Under the Tree, someone had set up furniture. Not plastic patio chairs, but real furniture. Coffee tables carved with jousting scenes sat in the grass. Girls a few grades older than me had collapsed together on an overstuffed leather couch, giggling loudly.

As a practiced new kid, I knew that first-day awkward is nothing compared to second-day awkward. On the first day, you don’t know anyone, and no one knows you. It’s a clean slate all around.

The second day is different. You’re expected to remember people’s
names
. You want to find the quasi-friends you met the day before, but you have no way of knowing if they’ll be as friendly on Day Two. You’re expected to know the routine and follow it. It was
twice
as important to do that at EAS. I could only imagine the
epic screw-ups that could happen at a magic after school program.

Lena could probably point me in the right direction
if
I found her.