

### Ivy's Tangle

Legend of the White Sword – Book 1

### P.D. Kalnay

Legend of the White Sword:

Ivy's Tangle

Ivy's Bind

Ivy's Blossom

_Knight's Haven_ (forthcoming)

Other books by P.D. Kalnay

The Arros Chronicles:

The Spiders of Halros

The High Priestess

_Jewel of the Empire_ (forthcoming)

The Alien Documentaries:

Resurrection

_Retribution_ (forthcoming)

_Redemption_ (forthcoming)

Children's Books:

Burn Bright

Misprint Press Publishing

Copyright © 2015 P.D. Kalnay

ISBN: 978-0-9940277-8-8

Cover Design by P.D. Kalnay

Author Website: www.pdkalnay.com

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed by a newspaper, magazine, or journal.

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead is coincidental.

For my nephew and namesake

### Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1 – Ms. Mopat

Chapter 2 – Glastonbury Manor

Chapter 3 – Knights in the Library

Chapter 4 – Down to the Basement

Chapter 5 – Digital Princess

Chapter 6 – Ivy's Lesson

Chapter 7 – Gardening

Chapter 8 – Hammer and Tongs

Chapter 9 – Eyes in the Darkness

Chapter 10 – New Beginnings

Chapter 11 – Bows and Arrows

Chapter 12 – New Doors

Chapter 13 – Misfortunes

Chapter 14 – Questions and Answers

Chapter 15 – Friendship Lost

Chapter 16 – Mended Fences

Chapter 17 – White Sword

Chapter 18 – Summer's End

### Prologue

"Inspection is in five minutes, Freak."

That morning wakeup call preceded the world turning on end as two of my roommates lifted the edge of my thin foam mattress and spilled me from my bed. I woke midway between top bunk and linoleum floor. Even if the sheet and blanket weren't tangled around me, I couldn't have found my feet. Half a year of judo had taught me how to take a fall. My shoulders sacrificed themselves to save my skull, and although the blankets covered my eyes, and obstructed my vision—they blocked none of the laughter.

The morning's third and final bugle blast played over the loudspeaker in the hallway outside our room. I was late, which resulted from my tendency to sleep through loud noises and the jerks who'd discovered it early in the school year. No doubt they'd disabled my extra alarm clocks again, and without question, I'd receive demerits for my disorderly appearance.

I crawled from a grabby nest of twisted blanket to be greeted by the five grinning faces of my roommates. All were neatly dressed and groomed in accordance with the regulations of the Hightower Military Academy. The glassy toes of ten parade boots shone as brightly as the fluorescent lighting allowed.

" _Four_ minutes," Ted Ross, my lower bunkmate, said.

Four minutes to dress, make my bed, and become presentable in the way only a mock military institution would require. It bordered on the impossible. We'd all get demerits for my impending, sloppy morning inspection. My _friends_ had decided that taking the hit as squad was worth it.

None of them were army brats with aspirations of attending West Point. Two kinds of students graced the halls of the country's most prestigious military academy/finishing school for young men. A small minority were legacies from families filled with generations of medal-covered officers. The rest consisted of problem children from families inclined, and wealthy enough, to board them there.

Like my roommates, I fell into the latter category.

At fourteen, I'd never been incarcerated in a white-collar prison, but I suspected that Hightower provided a similar experience. Since my roommates seemed likely to attend one later on, I supposed the academy might be providing them with useful life skills. Those notions floated at the back of my brain while I scrambled to fold hospital corners and dress.

Somebody had wedged my parade boots under the foot of my bed. I'd left them shiny and perfect the night before. One, or all, of my 'comrades in arms' had given them a different—if equally thorough—spit polish.

Whatever expression my face wore, brought a new round of laughter. I could hear the clicking steps of Sergeant Olsen as he walked the hallway.

"Time's up," Donny Walsh whispered.

The rest of the squad stood at lazy attention along the middle aisle of the room. Our bedroom was bare except for steel-frame bunkbeds, lockers, and barracks boxes. We lived like real soldiers in the dormitory for no reason I'd been able to work out. Thankfully, I kept most of my few personal belongings in my office. Every cadet had a spacious and private office across the grounds. I didn't know if it was because of the terrible academic environment, produced by jamming so many boys together, or just another elitist pretension. I also didn't care; suspecting that without the haven my office provided, I'd have lost-it early in the year. Since Day One, I'd adhered to a strict policy of not returning to the dormitory until lights-out.

"...tention," Sergeant Olsen screamed from the doorway.

A roomful of boot heels stomped floor.

The sergeant, another student, three years our senior, began his slow, drawling inspection. It was the same deal every morning: flaws would be found, yelling and name calling would ensue. Almost certainly, I'd have spittle sprayed across my face. I didn't hold it against him. Most of my classmates dreamt of the day when the combat boot might be on the other foot and they'd get to chew-out the next round of junior cadets. As we were members of a pretend military, most of the standard material came from _Platoon_ or _Full Metal Jacket_.

I had no aspirations, beyond being left alone, but I wasn't judgey. Even the petty bullying of my roommates didn't get me down. Over my nine years of education, I'd attended a grand total of seventeen schools, and, in seven days, Hightower would become the first one where I'd finished a school year at the same place I'd started it.

Would I return in September and move to the high school dormitory? Unknown. I didn't even know where I'd spend my summer holidays. Likely, it'd be at either my mother's or my father's residence. There had been the one year when I'd gone to summer camp, so...

I returned my thoughts to the present as the sergeant finished his tirade, "...and I've _never_ seen boots like these, Private. You can consider yourself on report, and those just bought you a month of KP."

As I said, school ended in a week. Math _wasn't_ Corey Olsen's _thing_. There was no KP duty either. He was enjoying himself, so I kept quiet.

"One hundred demerits for the lot of you," he finished.

A hundred was a crapload of demerits. For students who cared about their ranking at the school, it represented a devastating blow affecting _promotion_. Not caring about pretend promotion was one of the few things I had in common with my roommates. Sergeant Olsen stormed off to the next room in all of his outraged glory.

"Best one yet," Donny said with a snicker.

The shared grins told me that everyone had enjoyed the show. I ignored them and left for the mess and my breakfast—giving more reaction would only encourage more pranks. I'd dealt with _real_ bullying at other schools. Those guys were small potatoes.

***

I hit pause and stopped the movie on my laptop, mid-action. Again someone knocked at my office door, which was a first. Lights-out was still hours away. A younger cadet stood waiting on the other side. I'd never met the kid before, or had forgotten his face.

"Mail call, sir."

Junior students called the senior ones, sir, regardless of rank. He offered me a thick manila envelope accompanied by a crisp salute. Then, with mission accomplished, he spun on his heel. I'd never received mail before. Heck, I didn't know there _was_ a mail call. _Who sent letters?_ I returned to my desk to find out.

The envelope contained a smaller, unsealed envelope, a pair of airline tickets, and a modest stack of hundred dollar bills. I picked up the second envelope. A single word was written on the outside in my mother's handwriting: Jack. Which—not coincidentally—is my name. I hadn't gotten as much as an email from either parent since starting at the Hightower Military Academy, but there was nothing unusual about that.

I unfolded the letter.

Enclosed are airline tickets, and sufficient funds for taxis and meals. You will travel to your grandmother's home when the term ends. A car will collect you on Friday at 5:30 p.m. in front of the school's main gates. From now on, to add a measure of stability and consistency to your upbringing, you will live at Glastonbury Manor.

If you're wondering where the 'Dear Jack' or the 'Love Mom' was... well, I hadn't enjoyed a touchy feely upbringing. I'd gone to _so many_ schools because my parents moved frequently, for their jobs, and neither liked having me around for too long. You might think I'd be teary, having parents who were nothing more than polite strangers, but I was used to it. I'd had a lot of nannies, daycare, and assorted minders over the years. Moving again, and going to live with my grandmother, wasn't a big shock.

Besides, I had no friends to leave behind. Years before, I'd stopped trying to _make_ friends; plus I wasn't great at it.

I'd only met my grandmother three times in my whole life and knew little about her. She was my mother's mother, and my other grandparents were dead. I'd met none of them.

The big upside of the whole deal... it looked like I _wouldn't_ be returning to military school.

Chapter 1 – Ms. Mopat

I had done a fair bit of solo travelling over the last fourteen years and was a pro. A taxi picked me up at school, and after two flights and another longer taxi ride, I arrived at Glastonbury Manor.

That's what the sign at the end of Gran's driveway said. Gran ran a boarding house, and she'd been at it for over fifty years. I'd never seen the house before and was suitably impressed by its massiveness when the taxi brought me down the long, tree-lined drive. Gran's home was built from dark grey granite and stood three stories tall with dormers running along a slate roof, lighting what I figured must be the world's biggest attic. The manicured lawns and gardens at the front of the property stopped abruptly at the forest's edge. We'd driven through a good half-hour of forest before arriving at Gran's, and I'd seen no sign of other residences, or even side roads, for most of that time. Glastonbury Manor's driveway began where the road ended.

"You really gonna live here, kid?" the taxi driver asked from the front seat.

"Apparently," I said. "This is my grandmother's house."

"She must be loaded."

He stopped the cab in front of wide stone steps.

"I guess so."

I hopped out, staring up at the front doors as the cabbie unloaded my suitcases and dropped them beside me.

"Good luck, kid," was all he said before he drove off, leaving me standing at the threshold of the next stage of my young life.

With the entirety of my worldly possessions sitting on the steps, I considered ringing the bell or making use of one of the big, polished-brass knockers. I only considered it briefly; no one eagerly awaited my arrival, and I'd spent most of a night and a day in taxis, on planes, and waiting at airports—sitting. I wasn't hungry, or tired, had no need of a bathroom, and I wasn't keen to see my grandmother. It didn't look like rain, and, nobody would drive a zillion miles out into the country to steal my stuff.

I decided to investigate the property.

The forest called out. It begged for exploration. Gran's spooky looking house also begged to be explored, but that was better left for a rainy day. I walked back up the drive to the point it ran parallel with the forest. The trees grew right up to the edge of the gravel and stopped. Somebody had trimmed the forest like wall at the edge of the property. I swear it looked like an invisible fence held back the vegetation. Even the branches high-up had been cut; most of that pruning had occurred in the distant past, but a few showed signs of more recent trimming. Not a single bud of new growth crossed the invisible boundary. _Weird._

I didn't plan on taking a long hike and getting myself lost. I'm not an idiot. Although I was, up to that point, a city boy. I intended to go a short way in and look around, keeping the open lawns and gardens in view. As long as I could see Gran's grass, it'd be impossible to get lost.

Getting into the woods was harder than you'd think; the edge grew as dense as any ancient hedgerow. I pushed forward, eyes closed, as the branches grabbed and scratched at me. A few steps in, something tore my right pant leg open with a loud ripping sound and tripped me. I'm not a clumsy guy, but I tumbled and slid downhill. When I came to a stop, a few bruises later, I opened my eyes to take a first good look at the forest.

The forest was dense, twisted, and gloomy. It wasn't middle-of-the-night dark, but only a small fraction of the sunshine penetrated the canopy. I sat up, rubbing the side of my head, one of the many spots I'd banged on ground or root during my tumble. I sat at the bottom of a long ditch; thankfully not filled with water. Even standing up, I couldn't see over the edge.

As I determined to climb back out the way I'd fallen, I realised I didn't know which way that was. Too many old leaves and too much brush covered the forest floor for me to tell. Since I had two possible choices, I took the fifty-fifty bet and climbed up the side down which I _thought_ I'd fallen. I figured at the top I'd be able to see the driveway even if I picked wrong. I _had_ only taken _a few_ steps into the forest.

At the upper edge I peered into the surrounding vegetation, seeing no sign of a brighter patch or the driveway in that direction. Down I went again and scrambled up the opposite side of the ditch. The driveway wasn't visible on that side either. It didn't seem possible. Gran's driveway was paved with light-grey gravel, which should have shone through a crack in the undergrowth. I couldn't make out a thing. The driveway _couldn't_ be more than a few steps away, and I forced down a growing feeling of panic. I wasn't lost; I'd hardly _gone_ anywhere.

That's when I heard the first sound—nothing too ominous, just a rustling in the dry leaves. Probably squirrels out hunting for nuts. I heard the noise again. It sounded closer and maybe heavy for a squirrel. Raccoon? It was early for them, but also dark in there. Then the rustling sounds came from two directions.

Both sounded closer.

After a few seconds of silence, I exhaled a sigh of relief. _Until_ , the sound of movement came again—this time from even closer—and from a third direction. I couldn't see ten feet into the forest, and I took unconscious steps back away from the ditch... and the sounds.

Louder, faster crunching came from at least three different directions in front of me. Whatever they were, they were close now, and _definitely_ bigger than squirrels. Half a second before I was sure the unknown creatures would burst into view, something grabbed me by my shirt collar, dragging me backwards, away from the frightening sounds.

I may have kicked and screamed a little.

I didn't know _what_ had a hold of my shirt, but it dragged me through scratchy branches and onto Gran's driveway.

My kicking and screaming had no effect, and I was hoisted upright until I got my feet back under me. With the sudden release of my collar, I spun about in the now dazzlingly bright sunshine. I wasn't sure what to expect. I certainly didn't expect a pretty, raven-haired woman in a French maid's uniform. She nodded before turning, and without saying a word, strode away up the driveway towards the house. For a moment, I stood at a loss. Then I turned back to face the forest. It looked the same as it had before; a bunch of trees and bushes. By the time I faced the house again, the woman was halfway there. I had to run to catch up with her at the front steps.

That's how I met Ms. Mopat, my grandmother's maid, cook, and one hundred percent of the regular staff at Glastonbury Manor.

Chapter 2 – Glastonbury Manor

At the front steps, I gave her my best fake meeting-new-people smile.

"Hello," I said. "I'm Jack."

She nodded again and collected my bags from the walkway.

"I can take those," I said.

Together, my four suitcases weighed a tonne, but the slender lady in the maid's uniform scooped them up as though it was nothing and took them into the house. I stood silently amazed watching her go. My grandmother's voice brought me out of my stupor.

"Do you plan on standing there, with your mouth hanging open, all afternoon?" she asked.

I hadn't seen my grandmother in a few years, but I recognised her at once. She looked like an older version of my mother. Gran was tall, thin, and had her long grey hair tied up in a tight bun. Although unusually tall for a woman, the most striking thing about my grandmother was her eyes. She had pale, icy-blue eyes that looked right through you, and, if I'm being entirely honest, were a bit creepy. My parents weren't hugging _types_ , and one look at my grandmother told me she wasn't either.

"Hi Gran," I said. "I guess I'm staying here now?"

"You will remain a guest of this house for the next four years," she said.

She sounded like a judge handing out a sentence.

"Why?" I asked.

My parents rarely answered any _why_ questions.

"Because I said so." Gran turned and went back inside. "Your room is on the third floor."

Apparently, Gran wasn't big on answering questions either.

My options being stand outside forever, or go inside... I went in. The front hall was vast and fancy, matching the house's exterior. My grandmother had vanished, but a wide staircase waited at the other end of the hall, and I climbed the two flights of curving stairs to the third floor. The polished walnut bannister smelled of beeswax; a younger me would've considered taking a dangerous and exciting ride back down. The main stairs stood in the centre of the house, and a hallway led off in each direction from the third floor landing.

On a whim, I headed right and found the first door open. My suitcases sat inside the doorway; I figured it must be my new room. The room was a decent size, with a double bed, a dresser, and a writing table. Like most teenage boys, I wasn't much interested in antiques or floral wallpaper, but it would do.

After emptying my suitcases into the closet and the dresser, I poked around the house. It was the middle of the afternoon, and I had nothing else to do. Gran's house was huge. There's no other word for it. She lived in the sort of big old house a rich guy owned in the 1800's. A guy—I assumed—who owned the whole county at the time. Her house had high ceilings, big leaded windows, and rooms that never seemed to end. The house would've been spooky, real horror movie material, except no ghost or vampire could've survived the endless doilies and flower-print wallpaper.

Some stuff in Gran's house was pretty cool though.

For example, I found a full suit of armour standing at one end of the second floor hallway. It was a _real_ suit of armour too! Not a fake sheet-metal set made for decoration, and it had dents and scratches I could only assume came from battle. As I examined it, and opened the helmet's visor, I accidentally knocked the whole thing over, stand and all. The many pieces tumbled across the hardwood floor in a thunderous crash. When I looked up from the mess, I saw a girl's head sticking out from a doorway down the hall. She was short, blond, and looked a few years younger than me.

"Hi," I said. "Sorry about the noise."

The tiny girl just looked at me—the way a person might examine something unpleasant stuck to the bottom of their shoe—and stepped back into the room. I heard the door shut firmly.

_Friendly_ , I thought. Clearly, I wasn't the only person staying at Gran's house. The reassembling of the armour, and getting it back the way I'd found it, took over an hour, but I didn't mind. I'd done a lot of reading about armour, so actually assembling the pieces, and seeing how the puzzle fit together was fascinating. My stomach rumbled then, and it was near to dinnertime, so I went downstairs to find something to eat.

Glastonbury Manor has two dining rooms: a huge one with crystal chandeliers, and a smaller one with a table that _only_ held ten people. The small one would have been huge in a normal house. I found the big, empty dining room first, followed by the smaller one down the hall. My grandmother, the girl from earlier, and a man I didn't know sat around the table. Most of the chairs were pushed back against the walls, but one remained empty at the table, and I sat down, assuming it was for me.

"Hello," the man said.

"Hi."

"This is my grandson, Jack," Gran said. "Jack, this is Mr. Ryan, and this is Ivy. They are the other guests currently in residence."

"Hi," I added for the little blond girl.

Mr. Ryan was old, not _old_ like my grandmother, but old. Definitely over forty. He had short sandy-brown hair, grey eyes, and stood a couple of inches taller than me. Maybe six feet tall. His arms and shoulders were muscular like a wrestler's, but he was chubby. A second chin hung below the first, and his fair-sized belly pushed up against the table. Chubby or not, Mr. Ryan gave off a _competent/dangerous_ vibe, and I suspected that plenty of muscle hid under the fat. He also had a bunch of thin white scars on his bare forearms and the backs of his hands.

I wondered how a person would get those scars.

Ivy was tiny, blond, and pretty. Very pretty—too young for me to be interested in, but pretty. She had the brightest green eyes I'd ever seen, and her hair could have been in a shampoo commercial. Her sour expression _did_ knock back the pretty.

"Nice to meet you, Jack," Mr. Ryan said. "How long you going to be staying?"

"The next four years?" I looked to my grandmother for confirmation, and she nodded.

"Well, the food _is_ good here," Mr. Ryan said. "The place is pretty far from... almost everything though."

"I noticed on the drive in," I said. "It looks to be forest for miles. How far is the nearest town?"

"Over ten miles," Mr. Ryan supplied. "Lastbridge isn't much of a town. Unless, you have an interest in grocery stores or volunteer fire departments."

I didn't.

"That's it?" I asked.

"No." Mr. Ryan chuckled. "There are also two gas stations."

_Great, I'm trapped in the middle of nowhere_ , I thought. Still, I had an eerie forest to explore.

"I might spend my time exploring the forest," I said. "There's lots of that."

"The forest is _off-limits_ ," Gran said. "You'll stay on the property."

She didn't sound very flexible about that.

"How big is your property?" I asked.

"Ten acres surrounding the house and the outbuildings," she said. "The forest is privately owned conservation land— _trespassing is not permitted_."

I let the subject drop; there was no point in arguing with my grandmother, and I'd likely have no more supervision at her house than I'd had for the first fourteen years of my life. My trespassing and exploration of the surrounding woods could be done discreetly.

"What do you do for a living?" I asked Mr. Ryan to change the topic.

"I'm a security consultant," he said. "I've been doing a job in the area for the last month and half, but it's almost wrapped up now."

"What kind of security?"

"All kinds."

The way he said it told me that was as much as I would get.

"Are your parents staying here too?" I asked Ivy. Most kids didn't have absentee parents like mine.

"No," Ivy said. "They are not."

Then she returned to eating her dinner. _What a miserable–_

"Ivy is in my care for the summer months," Gran said. "Perhaps you'll find each other acceptable playmates."

_What?_ Gran expected me to _play_ with a snotty little kid on top of everything else. _That's not going to happen_ , I thought.

"I don't know anything about babysitting kids," I said. "And I'm not interested in learning."

Mr. Ryan smiled, Gran gave me a flat stare, and Ivy... she looked ready to spring across the table and stick her fork in my eye.

"You and Ivy share the same birthday," Gran said. "So _babysitting_ won't be necessary. Ivy is a petite girl, but no younger than you are."

I took a better look at Ivy. She _could_ be my age, she was little, but not... _undeveloped_.

"Have you finished staring yet?" Ivy asked me. She turned to Gran. "I have no interest in spending time with this _boy!_ "

It looked as if it might be a long summer.

***

I met Gran's cat on the way back to my room after a round of pre-bedtime tooth brushing. Her black cat had smooth, thick, shiny fur, and it was huge. It looked big enough to have bobcat in its family tree. The cat brushed up against my leg as I stopped at my bedroom door. After petting the big cat, I felt momentary sympathy for the mice foolish enough to trespass in Glastonbury Manor. The cat purred under my hand and nuzzled me with its forehead. Never having been allowed a pet, it was a novel experience.

That's how my first feline relationship began.

Gran's cat showed up at random after that. Sometimes, it sat in my lap while I messed around on my computer or drew in my sketchbook. Other times, the cat slept next to, or on top of me. I usually pushed it off. Gran's cat was heavy! I'd never really understood why people had pets before I met the cat. Now I knew... it was _almost_ like having a friend.

Chapter 3 – Knights in the Library

Rain trapped me inside for my first days at Glastonbury Manor, and I spent most of my time playing video games, watching movies on my laptop, and working on a model plane. I rarely saw Mr. Ryan or my grandmother, except at dinner, and only bumped into Ivy sporadically (which was more than enough for me). She _was_ my age, and you'd think it would be nice having another kid around to hang out with. It wasn't. Ivy was a total jerk.

She was staying with Gran, but I didn't know why. Ivy wasn't a regular boarder like Mr. Ryan or a relative like me. As I understood it, her grandmother and my grandmother were old friends, and Gran was looking after her for the summer. Ivy was a snotty, stuck-up brat—I didn't know the details. The few times she'd spoken to me, Ivy had tried to order me around as if I was her personal butler.

The first time I saw her, I thought she was the prettiest girl I'd ever seen, but that was before she opened her mouth. After less than a week of living in the same house with her, she didn't seem pretty at all.

***

We had a fight at dinner one night, and the next day found us out in Gran's huge vegetable garden, breaking up the dirt with shovels. Gran has a guy who takes care of the gardens and deals with the landscaping. The manual labour was a punishment. I still didn't know why I was being punished for not putting up with a spoiled brat. Ivy blamed me.

"This is your fault," Ivy said.

She stood on the shovel blade with both feet and bounced it into the dark earth. Ivy wore an oversized pair of Gran's old rubber boots. After hours of gardening, she looked grubby. I assumed she wore them because she owned no footwear suitable for manual labour. Ivy always dressed as though she were going to a fancy tea party. If she had jeans or shorts (or a t-shirt) I'd seen no evidence of it over the previous week. Specs of dirt splattered Ivy's frilly white dress, and her long blond hair looked frazzled. She'd even smeared a fair amount of dirt down the side of her face.

It made her look a little cute.

"I shouldn't be working like a common labourer!"

And... the cute disappeared again. I'd spent my life in exclusive schools, surrounded by over-privileged kids, but this little princess took the cake.

"Why don't you talk less and dig more?" I asked. "I'm almost done _my_ half. If you think I'll be helping with yours—you can think again."

Ivy had obviously never done a lick of hard work in her life. Truthfully, I hadn't either, but I was a sturdy guy, and she was downright tiny. I could tell from her expression that she expected me to move on to her side of the garden when I finished with mine.

_Keep dreaming,_ _Princess_.

"You aren't?" she asked.

"No. When I finish, I'll get a nice cold drink, have a seat on that bench over there... and enjoy the show."

"I have no doubt you wish to continue staring at me—pervert! Do you think I haven't noticed?"

I felt blood rushing to my face. I hated that girl. Maybe I'd looked at her _a little_. She was really, really good looking, but I hadn't been staring.

"Your face is as much as an admission of your guilt," she said.

Who talks like that?

"Screw you," I said, quickly turning my last three shovelfuls of dirt. Then I carried my shovel to the shed, without looking back, determined not to give her the satisfaction. As I headed around the house, I heard her last quiet word.

"Pig."

***

It started raining right after I left Ivy in the garden. I'll give the princess credit, she kept digging until she finished her side. My room faced the backyard. I wasn't spying on her. _Honestly._ With her dress and hair soaked down, she looked like a drowned cat by the time she finished. At dinner, she avoided eye contact with me, which suited me fine.

I went to the library after dinner. Yeah, the house is so big it has an honest-to-goodness library. There are walls of books, a rolling ladder that lets you reach the highest ones, and a huge stone fireplace. The evenings were still cool, and someone, either Gran or Ms. Mopat, had lit a fire on the grate.

I'd claimed the biggest chair facing the fire. The chair back was high, making it seem more like a throne. I sat with a sketchbook in my lap, but stared up at the sword and shield hanging above the mantle. I guessed my grandfather was a big collector of antiques because Gran's house was full of them. The sword looked old and the scabbard even older. I had tried fencing during my year at military school, and I'd read up on swords and armour. The sword over the fireplace was a mediaeval broadsword. _Not_ a sword that a Musketeer or Zorro would have sported. It was a heavy piece of steel that a knight of the Round Table might have carried. The shield was kite-shaped and painted flat black, which I thought boring. You'd think somebody could've spruced it up with a dragon or a lion.

"You checking out the sword?" Mr. Ryan asked.

I hadn't heard him arrive. He stood beside me, also looking up at the sword. Mr. Ryan was a soft spoken man who rarely said anything at the dinner table. I'd been wondering about his scars since the first time he'd passed me a bowl of mashed potatoes. They crisscrossed his hands and forearms, and I couldn't imagine how you'd get those scars.

Quiet or not, Mr. Ryan had an intimidating presence, and I hadn't worked up the courage to ask. I hadn't spoken to him outside of mealtimes, but I _had_ seen him putting empty whisky bottles in the recycling bin. My father drank himself to sleep every night, and I suspected Mr. Ryan did the same. He held a crystal tumbler full of liquor and ice.

"Yeah, it's pretty cool," I said.

"Old too," he said, not taking his eyes from the sword. "Strange."

"Strange how?"

"I can't place it." Mr. Ryan looked away from the sword and down at me. "I know a lot about weapons, and swords in particular, but this one... I can't quite place. Your grandmother says she's not sure where it came from."

He took a sip of his drink and shook his head.

"What makes it so unusual?" I asked.

"It's just an oddball. The markings and the design match no period or place I know of, and yet..."

"And yet?"

"And yet I would swear on my life, I'd seen it somewhere."

I didn't have a reply to that, and we both continued looking up at the sword for a few minutes.

"Mr. Ryan?" Ivy's voice came from behind my chair.

She sounded a lot more polite than any of the times she'd addressed me. I hunched up in the chair, trying not to make a sound. With luck, Ivy would go away before realising I was there. Mr. Ryan looked at me, without _really_ looking, and then turned to the door. His smile seemed half in greeting for Ivy and half laughing at me.

"Hello Ivy, how are you this evening?"

I hadn't noticed he was drunk when we'd been talking, but watching him now, with his slightly unsteady gait and glossy eyes, it became obvious.

"I'm well. Thank you for asking," Ivy said.

"Is there something I can do for you?"

"Perhaps, it isn't my place to say anything..." Ivy sounded unsure of herself.

I heard her walk to the middle of the room.

"Say anything about what?" Mr. Ryan looked puzzled.

"I've spoken to the mistress of the house. She informed me that you are a great knight and a noble warrior."

_This stop... crazy town. Who wants off?_ I felt bad about fighting with Ivy. Possibly, she had serious mental issues. I'd assumed she was just a jerk. Mr. Ryan appeared unfazed and ran a hand through his thinning hair.

"I was a soldier for most of my life, and now I'm a private security consultant," he said. "Never a _knight,_ or particularly _noble_."

"Humility is a fine thing, but lies do not become you. Do you think I could fail to mark a _Knight of the Order_ dining at the same table, and living under the same roof? Only a great quest would have brought you here. What is it you seek?"

Mr. Ryan now looked uncomfortable.

"I'm not seeking anything," he said.

"If that's the case—will you be my protector?"

"Do you need protection from someone?"

"At this moment no," Ivy whispered, "but a time may come..."

"If you need my protection, you'll have it."

"Will you swear to it?" Ivy sounded serious. _Crazy_ serious.

The expression on Mr. Ryan's face changed to something colder. I didn't know why he was playing along.

"When I say I'll do something, I do it," he said.

"Of course." Ivy sounded less confident. "Forgive me."

"There's nothing to forgive. That wasn't what you came to say, was it?"

I heard a sharply indrawn breath from Ivy. She was silent for a good minute before she spoke again.

"No. I came here to chastise you. Look at yourself. You're a drunkard and you've let yourself grow soft. Would you _be_ fit protection, should I call on you for aid? You've given up the field of battle, and live like an old man, while still hale and well able to lift a sword. I won't call you coward—I see in your eyes it isn't so—but I would ask why you've allowed yourself to fall to such a state."

With each crazy word from Ivy's mouth, Mr. Ryan's face grew increasingly distraught. It was obvious he didn't want to upset Princess Nut-job, but didn't know what to say. Just as I decided _I_ should say something, he spoke.

"There's nothing worth fighting for," he said. "I spent most of my life fighting for politicians and corporations, but there was no true honour in it... Now I've stopped, and wait."

"For death?" Ivy asked.

Mr. Ryan shrugged.

"And have you truly no quest in this world?"

"I _am_ looking for _something_ ," Mr. Ryan said. "But I don't know what."

"Perhaps... I can aid you in your quest," Ivy said.

The sound of her footfalls disappeared down the hallway, and Mr. Ryan turned back to me.

"She's crazy," I said.

"Yeah, maybe." Mr. Ryan threw what remained of his drink into the fire. The flames flared high for a few seconds, and the ice cubes cracked noisily in the heat. "She's right though. I've let things slide too far."

Mr. Ryan left before I could say anything else.

Chapter 4 – Down to the Basement

The Saturday morning after the weird conversation in the library found Gran, Mr. Ryan, Ivy, and I sitting around the table in the small dining room, eating breakfast. A lodger at Gran's received meals included with their room. I hadn't eaten the same thing twice, and all the food was delicious. Ms. Mopat, the tall dark-haired woman who cleaned for Gran, was also the cook. I'd said 'Hi' to her in the hallways a few times, and had gotten a nod in response, but had yet to hear Ms. Mopat say a single word. I didn't know if she _couldn't_ speak, or chose not to.

"Will you be leaving us next week?" Gran asked Mr. Ryan.

Mr. Ryan set down his cup of coffee. He looked more alert than he had at our other breakfasts together.

"No, I'd like to book my rooms for the summer, if they're available?" he said.

"There is ample space if you wish to stay. I _am_ expecting other boarders, but not a full house. I thought your current contract was complete."

Gran spread raspberry jam across a slice of toast.

"The job is done except for the mopping up, but I'm taking the summer off to focus on things I've let slide." Mr. Ryan smiled at Ivy. She'd been watching him like a hawk as he spoke. He turned back to Gran. "Do you know of a gym nearby? I plan to start working-out again."

"There are no gyms or fitness clubs in the area," she said. "The town couldn't support one."

The nearest town was miles away, and, according to the internet, had two hundred and seven residents. I'd researched it, hoping to find something—anything to do, and been left disappointed.

"However," Gran said, picking up her toast, "we have a small gymnasium in the basement."

"Really?" I asked. _What else did the place have?_

"Yes, a former long-term guest was quite a fitness fanatic and claimed the gymnasium as his own. No one has opened the room in years. I have many rooms that _never_ get used." Gran frowned. "He left his heavy equipment. Young Andrew asked if he might store the equipment for a time, but didn't come back for it. Until this morning... I'd forgotten all about it."

"I'll go have a peek after breakfast," Mr. Ryan said.

"Jack, you'll help Mr. Ryan clean the room," Gran said.

"What? Why do I have to help?"

"That's unnecessary," Mr. Ryan told Gran. "I'm happy to take care of it. You're doing me a huge favour."

_Thank you, Mr. Ryan!_ I thought. That was a close call. I had an appointment with the surrounding forest.

"Jack _will_ help you," Gran said with a note of finality. She turned my way. "You left Ivy to finish the garden alone in the rain yesterday."

"But I already finished my half!"

"A gentleman helps a lady when the opportunity presents itself," Gran said. "Laziness isn't a desirable quality in a young man."

For an old lady, Gran could sure stare you down.

"Fine," I said.

The worst part was the delighted expression on Ivy's face.

***

I met Mr. Ryan at the top of the basement stairs. I hadn't been down to the basement or up to the attic yet. After a week, I still hadn't finished exploring the three main levels. Something always side-tracked me when I went wandering around the house.

The basement door was a heavy, ironbound oak monstrosity, opening onto a wide, dark staircase. The stairs looked spooky until Mr. Ryan flipped the light switch. After that, they just looked excessively fancy for basement stairs. I followed him as he descended. There were a fair number of cobwebs on the wood panelled walls and ceiling. It didn't look as if Ms. Mopat cleaned down there.

"Sorry you got dragged into this," Mr. Ryan said as he led the way.

"It's no big deal," I said. I mostly meant it too. I'd have been slightly nervous exploring on my own. Mr. Ryan was out of shape, but he seemed like somebody you shouldn't mess with. "It's kind of cool exploring the house."

"Yeah, your grandmother's place is huge. I haven't seen half the house after almost two months of staying here. This is like exploring a dungeon."

Mr. Ryan turned back, flashing me a tight grin. Which, I returned. He was a hard guy not to like.

A wide hallway ran down the centre of the basement, the same as on the upper floors. Unlike the hardwood upstairs, that hallway was paved with smooth, tightly fitted stone. Fluorescent lights had been added like an afterthought to the vaulted ceiling, and lamps, which I guessed ran on oil, still hung on the walls. Half the fluorescent tubes flickered and clicked, creating shadows that danced into the distance.

"I forgot to ask for directions," Mr. Ryan said with a laugh. "I guess we'll have to search. We might as well try this one first."

He opened the closest door, standing opposite the stairs. After a little fumbling he found a light switch, and I pushed in next to him so I could see. The room was huge and filled with wooden crates, boxes, and furniture covered in white sheets. A counter ran around the outside, and there were lots of cupboards. Tiny windows near the ceiling provided a trivial amount of light.

"This is the original kitchen," Mr. Ryan said. "The ovens and old wood stove are there, under all that." He pointed to the far end of the room.

"A kitchen in the _basement?_ "

"Back in the day, the servants and cooking were kept out of sight. They probably added the kitchen upstairs in the last century. There sure is a lot of junk. Shall we move on?"

Mr. Ryan led the way out, and I followed him down the hall. It took two more tries to find the gym which was across from the pool. Yeah, I said pool! My grandmother had a pool in her basement. Not Olympic-sized, but more than long enough to swim laps. The pool looked as if no one had used it in my lifetime, and possibly not in Mr. Ryan's either.

We both stood on the deck, staring into the empty pool for a while. The pool room had more windows along the two outside walls than the kitchen. The room wasn't bright, but it was _brighter_. A second door led to a small mechanical room filled with pumps and ancient-looking pool supplies.

"Do you think it's usable?" I asked as we returned to the hallway.

"I didn't see any cracks, and the pumps and filter system appear intact. I'd need to replace the burnt-out bulbs and have a better look to know for sure. You could ask your grandmother about it. There may be a problem with it, or she might have felt a pool was too much work to maintain. Kinda cool, don't you think?"

We shared another grin before Mr. Ryan opened the door to the gym across the hall. It was a proper _gymnasium_ , with a higher ceiling and sprung hardwood floors coated in a thousand layers of varnish. It looked to have been built a hundred years ago, and I imagined old-timey strongmen and bare knuckle boxers training there.

One wall had a peg board, and there was a stack of kettlebells in a corner. Not the new, trendy, rubber-coated kind either. Another corner had more modern equipment. A big rack held dark cast-iron plates and chrome barbells. There was another long rack filled with dumbbells ranging from tiny to way-too-big-for-me-to-lift. Gran's gym even had a Universal machine, an old rowing machine, and a treadmill. It was also comparatively bright. The gym had more lights than the rest of the basement combined, and it made the place feel more ordinary.

"Your Gran wasn't kidding when she said there was a gym." Mr. Ryan looked as impressed as I was. "This must take up a quarter of the house's footprint."

He walked over to examine the bench by the free weights as I wondered to the opposite side. There were hooks hanging from the ceiling and one had a round board above it.

"What are these for?" I asked. The hooks looked heavy-duty.

"That one's for a heavy bag, and that's for a speed bag," Mr. Ryan said.

I jumped. I hadn't heard him cross the room.

"For boxing?"

"Yeah, I might buy bags as my contribution to the gym."

Mr. Ryan's enthusiasm made him seem younger.

"There might be some down here," I said. "There looks to be one of everything else."

"Maybe in there." Mr. Ryan pointed to a door that didn't lead back to the hall.

The door led to a storage room. Part of which was under the stairs. The room had a musty smell like old canvas tents.

"There is a little of everything in here," Mr. Ryan said. "Fencing equipment, boxing gear, somebody even had a go at kendo."

He pointed to a rack of wooden and bamboo swords on one wall. Two sets of kendo armour flanked the rack. The rack also held foils, epee, and sabres. I grabbed a sabre and went back into the gym. Although I'd only gotten to do fencing for the one year at military school, I'd liked it. Admittedly, part of the reason for that was I was pretty good, and I'd liked being good at something besides homework.

I raised the sabre to parry an overhand attack and slashed an imaginary opponent diagonally across his chest. The slender sword felt at home in my hand. Something hit my left leg with a painful thwack, and I turned in shock to see Mr. Ryan holding one of the bamboo-slat swords from the rack. I took a step back, seeing his expression.

"Sloppy," he said. "You had too much weight on your front foot, and your knife hand is flopping around like a wet noodle."

There was something genuinely scary about Mr. Ryan with a sword in his hand. It wasn't even a _real_ sword. His face lost its scary-serious expression, and a look of horror replaced it.

"I'm sorry, Jack," he said. "I shouldn't have hit you—I don't know what came over me."

"That's OK. I'm not hurt. Do you know about fencing?"

"A little," Mr. Ryan said. Then he shrugged before adding. "Actually... a fair amount."

"Will you teach me?" I asked. Fencing had been the only good thing at military school. It wasn't a popular sport, and I hadn't expected to try it again before I went to college, if then. Mr. Ryan clearly felt guilty about hitting me. Now was the time to strike.

"I'd have to ask your grandmother," he said.

Despite the painful welt forming on my leg, I couldn't help grinning. Maybe staying at Gran's wouldn't suck.

### Chapter 5 – Digital Princess

Mr. Ryan and I spent the better part of the day cleaning the gym. Everything in the big room was covered in dust and spider webs. I learned no fencing, but Mr. Ryan taught me the proper way to sweep, mop, and polish. He said cleaning was one of the few truly useful skills twenty-five years in the army had provided him.

I could have done without the lesson.

We moved the rack of swords out to an empty wall in the gym, and I thought it had a shrine-like quality. The kendo gear was lightly used, and Mr. Ryan declared it serviceable. Most of the fencing equipment was mouldy, nasty, and ancient. It went into a garbage bag. Mr. Ryan examined the punching bags for a long time before saying he'd order new ones. He said they were so old they were probably made of asbestos. I wasn't sure if he was joking. By late afternoon the gym sparkled, but we were filthy and headed off to our respective showers.

***

I was eager to ask Gran if Mr. Ryan could teach me fencing at dinner, but he beat me to it. Gran looked between us thoughtfully.

"I wouldn't want to impose on you," she said. "Young boys can be a handful, and I'm sure you have other things to do."

I held my breath. It was up to Mr. Ryan now.

"It would only be for a couple hours a day," Mr. Ryan said. "I haven't done any fencing in years, and I am trying to get back into better shape. Jack's youthful enthusiasm will inspire me. I also wanted to replace the boxing equipment, if that's all right? Some of the other gear is beyond salvaging, but I didn't want to throw anything out..."

"If it's garbage, throw it away," Gran said. "I'm not attached to any of the fitness equipment. If you find Jack isn't behaving, don't feel obligated to continue his lessons."

"I'm sure there won't be any problems," Mr. Ryan said.

_Yes!_ I cheered silently. I'd get fencing lessons and still have plenty of time for exploring the woods and generally goofing off. Things looked good. When she spoke, it was as if my grandmother had heard my thoughts.

"That will leave you with a great deal of _unscheduled_ time," she said.

I didn't like the appraising look she gave me.

"I'll find things to do."

"That is what I'm afraid of." Gran looked from me to Ivy and back. "Ivy is spending the summer with us to learn how things work here. I know little of computers and modern technology."

Gran wasn't kidding. I forgot to mention that there were no TVs in Gran's house. _None_. No cable, no satellite, no antenna. I might have died on the first day, if not for the phone line and the internet. Unsurprisingly, people don't want to stay at a place with no connection to the outside world. I'd been streaming TV on my laptop since I got there. I looked at Ivy.

"How can you not know about computers?" I asked. "Are you from Pennsylvania?"

Ivy hadn't spoken for the entire meal. Now she glared at me.

"Ivy isn't Amish." Gran said. "She's been home-schooled and has received... a _classical_ education. As I already told you, she is here to learn of more _contemporary_ matters. _You_ will teach her."

"No!" Ivy and I said together—making that the first thing the little princess and I had agreed on.

"Yes," Gran said. "You will teach Ivy of computers and such. You have the only computer in the house, and I know nothing about them."

_Wait a minute._ I looked to Mr. Ryan, but he shook his head before I could ask.

"Sorry," he said. "My laptop can't be accessed by anyone else. People pay me _not_ to endanger their information."

Damn.

"I can simply use the boy's computer." Ivy smiled sweetly at Gran. "I'm sure I can figure it out on my own."

Blood rushed to my head. The main reason I had no friends was the moving around thing, but I also had difficulty controlling my temper and not saying things out loud that shouldn't be said.

"Two problems with that," I said. "One, my name is Jack, not _the boy,_ and two—I'm not letting some stupid girl break my laptop!"

"Did you just call me stupid, _boy_?"

Ivy's fuse was as short as mine. It's how we'd ended up turning Gran's vegetable garden.

"My name is four letters long and a single syllable. So yeah, I'm pretty sure you're stupid."

"That is more than enough from the two of you." Gran didn't raise her voice, but we both backed down. Arguing with Gran was a bad idea. You never won. "Jack will teach Ivy about computers, end of discussion. Ivy will teach Jack gardening."

"What?" Again Ivy and I spoke in unison.

"You both have too much misdirected energy," Gran said. "I will inform the groundskeeper that you will manage the vegetable garden this year."

"I'd be happy to tend the garden as thanks for your hospitality," Ivy said. "I can manage the task on my own, _without any assistance_."

I had nearly two seconds of renewed hope.

"How will Jack learn about gardening that way?" Gran asked.

Ivy's cute little face stared up at Gran's steely expression for a good minute before she backed down. As I said, you didn't win arguments with my grandmother.

Mr. Ryan ate his dinner and refrained from commenting. That was the first time I realised... he was smart too.

***

I had a strange dream that night. Maybe it wasn't _that_ strange, considering that blacksmithing was one of many things I'd always been interested in, and given that I'd seen the _Lord of the Rings_ movies a thousand times. I dreamt of a dark smithy, deep under the earth and lit only by the forge's white-hot glow. How'd I know it was deep under the earth? _I just knew._ Sometimes in dreams, you _know_ stuff.

In the dream I was me, but I was also somebody else—pretty standard for dreams. Not a lot happened in the dream, and from what I could remember afterwards, it mainly involved the forging of a huge hammer head. It had a spike on one end, so it was probably for a war hammer. The whole thing was very _Mines of Moria_. I chocked it up to way too much Middle Earth... and the two extra servings of dessert I'd eaten right before bedtime.

***

My grandmother called my father, and the next morning five cardboard boxes of fencing gear showed up at the front door. It was white, pristine, and new. There were sets for Mr. Ryan too. After we opened the boxes on the gym's floor, he gave me a questioning look with one querulous eyebrow raised.

"My dad's super rich," I said. It was true. "This won't mean anything to him, as far as the cost goes."

"Do you ever see him?"

"No. He's really busy... with work."

"I see."

"It's no big deal," I lied with the bright smile I learned to lie with years before. "Now we can practice."

"We definitely can," Mr. Ryan said. "We'll start with stretching."

Two hours of intense exercise and drills followed. I'd hoped to spar at the end, but Mr. Ryan said it was too soon for that. I wasn't disappointed though. Somewhere in the middle of the practice, I realised Mr. Ryan knew his stuff. He said he hadn't picked up a foil in twenty years, and watching him move, I hoped I'd be as good after twenty more years of practising. Mr. Ryan also turned out to be a very strict instructor, but not a mean one, and that makes all the difference.

I left the gym exhausted and sweaty.

It was still weeks too early for planting vegetables, so I'd hoped to duck into the forest for the afternoon to explore. By the time I finished showering, the heavy rainfall outside had dashed that hope.

Dinner is a formal meal at Gran's place, but breakfast and lunch are self-serve on weekdays. Ms. Mopat had set the sideboard with sandwiches and pot of soup. I don't normally enjoy soup, but on cold, wet days it has its appeal. I'd just grabbed a big plate of sandwiches and a bowl of soup, and had sat down for a quiet lunch, when Ivy set her own lunch on the table across from me. Neither of us acknowledged the other. We ate in sullen silence for a good twenty minutes.

"The mistress of the house informed me that you shall begin my instruction this afternoon," Ivy said.

I looked up from studiously ignoring her. Ivy's food was gone. If I hadn't eaten the same meal, I'd have concluded that the food was incredibly bitter, based on her expression.

"She didn't inform _me_ ," I said.

" _I_ am informing you now, _boy_."

I felt my face go hot. Something about that miserable brat infuriated me.

"I'll let you know when I'm ready, _Princess_ ," I said through clenched teeth. I picked up my last half sandwich and ate it as slowly as I could manage. At the end of five painful minutes, I looked up to find Ivy staring at me. She spoke when I made eye contact.

"How did you discover I'm a princess?" she asked. She looked super intense.

_Oh yeah_ , I thought, _she's crazy_. The conversation in the library came back in a rush as I remembered she was a few bricks short of a load. Then I briefly felt bad again for antagonising someone with obvious mental issues. Maybe she couldn't help being a miserable harpy.

"It seemed pretty obvious," I said. _Was that the right answer?_

"If a simpleton can discern my true nature, I must be more careful."

What?

"Whatever you say, Princess." _I need to learn to keep my mouth shut._

"It's good you're learning your place, boy. You may begin my instruction now."

_Damn it_. Princess Whackadoo appeared to be taking what I said at face value. Military school was looking good.

"Gran doesn't have wireless, so we'll have to do it up in my room."

"That seems... improper."

Ivy gave me a glare loaded with suspicion. She stared at me like she wanted to peel the skin off my face with her eyes. Heck, I _felt_ guilty.

"Come on," I said and headed to my room without checking to see if she followed.

Mr. Ryan and I lived on the third floor of Gran's house. Gran, Ivy, and Ms. Mopat lived on the second floor. As I said before, most of the place was vacant. My room was one of the smaller bedrooms, but it had two big windows overlooking the back yard and the forest. Mr. Ryan had a bedroom, a sitting room, and a bathroom to himself, but I used a shared bathroom at the end of the hall. It wasn't a big deal because I rarely had to share it.

I led Ivy to the antique writing table that held my laptop. Gran had no wireless and only a few rooms were wired for internet, which was how I ended up with that particular room. I carried a second chair to the table and set it next to the one I usually used. Ivy made a point of pulling them further apart before sitting next to me.

"How much do you know about computers?" I asked.

"Nothing," Ivy said. "We don't have such things at home."

_No computers? Where was she from? The 1700's?_ I suspected Ivy was a new-age-hippy type.

"How do you get things done without computers?"

I was genuinely curious, but my question angered her.

"Very well, thank you," she said. She pointed at the laptop. "Is this a computer?"

"It's one kind of computer, a portable model."

"What does it do?"

"Computers do everything," I said.

Ivy looked incredulous and her little mouth narrowed into a frown.

"I find that hard to believe," she said. "Make it do something."

I was hardly a computer expert, and I'd worried about teaching Ivy, but it appeared I would have _too much_ material.

"OK," I said, flipping open the screen and pressing the power button. "This is how you turn it on."

"Like the lights in this house?" Ivy asked, leaning closer.

"Yeah, don't they have electricity where you come from either?"

"Don't take that tone with me, _boy_. Just teach me how to use this computer and show me how it does _everything_."

"I said computers _in general_ do pretty much everything. This one only does certain things. We should start with the internet." I figured even old people can surf the net.

The laptop finished booting up, and my home screen popped up, complete with its resident bikini models.

"Why are those women in your computer?" Ivy asked. "Who are they?"

I'd forgotten my home screen.

"It's just a picture," I said. "You can customise the screen how you want."

I felt my face flushing and turned back to the screen.

"Pervert," Ivy said under her breath, but more than loud enough to hear.

I decided it was best to push forward with the lesson.

"One thing that computers do is let you learn things by connecting you to databases around the world. They're like electronic libraries."

"How many books are in these libraries?" Ivy asked, peering at the screen.

"Tens of millions I'd guess."

Her expression said she thought I was pulling her leg.

"It's true," I said. "You can put in a question, or a topic, and the computer will help find the answer for you."

I opened the web browser. Ivy still gave me a suspicious frown.

"Tell me something you want to know about, and I'll show you how to do a search."

"Does the computer have maps, as well as books, in its libraries?"

"Yes, you can see pictures of the world too."

"The entire world?"

"Yeah."

"Show me," Ivy said.

I opened Google Earth and showed her how to navigate with the mouse. Then I found Gran's house, which was in one of the rare fuzzy sections of map you sometimes see. I let her try, and after watching her explore for an hour, I asked if she wanted me to show her something else. Ivy shook her head without looking away from the screen; I stretched out on my bed for a well-deserved nap and left her to it.

When I woke, just before dinner, Ivy was gone.

***

I rarely dreamed or at least rarely remembered my dreams before moving to Glastonbury Manor. I'd been having dreams every night since. They were vivid and real-seeming, but fuzzy at the same time. Now that I've told you, I realise that doesn't make any sense. My dreams were like that though—real while they were happening—and distantly unclear when I woke.

That night I dreamt of the forest; a dark shadow-filled nightmare involving me endlessly running, pursued by unseen monsters. Each time they came close to catching me, I woke. Each time I woke, Gran's cat purred, and I'd pet it until I fell back asleep. It was strangely comforting having the cat sleeping beside me. I had always considered myself a dog person, but I'd never had _any_ pets, so that had largely been conjecture. Gran told me that the cat didn't have a name when I'd asked, and I thought maybe I should give it one. I fell back asleep before I could come up with a suitable name.

Chapter 6 – Ivy's Lesson

I woke earlier than usual, discovering the cat had abandoned me. The wind and raindrops blowing through the window screens had dragged me from sleep. Barely awake, I stumbled across the room to shut the windows. As I moved to the second one, I stopped, hands poised, ready to pull down the heavy wooden frame. Someone was out back in the rain. It was dim outside, from the hour and the weather, but I recognised Ms. Mopat right away. What I couldn't figure out was what she was doing.

She appeared to be cleaning litter from the yard. Gran's housekeeper moved briskly around the edge of the property. Every so often, she'd stoop to pick something up and put it in a large bag. Then she'd move on. Who did yard work at six in the morning— _in the rain?_

I pinched myself to make sure I wasn't dreaming. I wasn't. Then I watched her work for almost an hour. She patrolled the entire perimeter of my grandmother's yard before heading back towards the house. A bag full of (I assumed leaves and sticks) bulged at her side. In the city, it might have been full of litter. At Gran's, given the lack of any neighbours... where could litter come from?

Ms. Mopat came to an abrupt halt, when she'd almost reached the house—and looked up at me. The air was muggy, but I felt a shiver run down my spine. She looked straight at me, even though my light wasn't on, there must have been fifty windows on the back of Gran's house, and I'd made no noise or movement. Then, after a brief pause, she continued on her way.

Weird.

***

Rain fell for the next few days. Each morning I learned more fencing from Mr. Ryan, and each afternoon Gran scheduled more Ivy-time for me. For a girl impressed by the electric lights, she quickly mastered modern technology. Even typing with one finger, she moved around the web with relative ease, and after the second day, Ivy informed me that she wanted to learn all the internet had to offer before I taught her more. That sounded good to me, and I made Ivy her own user account (with no administrative privileges) letting her surf to her heart's content. I mostly napped through a week of afternoons as neither of us was inclined to talk.

Five days into that routine, Ivy began our first real conversation.

"Is Mr. Ryan teaching you to dance?" she asked.

I was stretched out on my bed, eyes closed, and almost blissfully asleep.

"What?" I asked groggily.

"I watched the two of you for a few minutes this morning," Ivy said. "You danced in strange clothing, with metal wands in your hands."

Was she making fun of me, or once again showing her vast ignorance? With Ivy—I often couldn't tell.

"I was holding a _sword_ ," I said, "and we were _fencing_."

"Fencing?"

"Sword fighting."

Ivy laughed.

"What's so funny?" I asked, sitting up.

"I've seen sword fighting," she said. " _That_ wasn't sword fighting. You'd be dead in a few heartbeats, prancing and poking with that willow switch of a blade."

I found it hard to believe that the thing Ivy _did_ know about was fighting (with a sword or otherwise).

"You don't know what you're talking about," I said. I was proud of myself for not saying several other things. "Why don't you practice your web searching and learn about fencing for yourself?"

"I'm impressed," Ivy said as she turned back to the computer.

"Why?"

"Because, you made a suggestion that _wasn't_ stupid."

I closed my eyes again and held in my reply.

***

"Boy, wake up," Ivy said.

It felt like I'd only had five minutes of napping.

"What?"

"I was right. I woke you to give you an opportunity to apologise." Ivy sounded happy.

"Right about what?" I wasn't entirely awake yet.

"This fencing isn't _real_ sword fighting. It's just a game loosely based upon it. Worthless, as far as I can tell. You may apologise now."

"It's not a game it's a _sport!_ " I said. "People can't go around jabbing each other with real swords."

"Explain the difference between a game and a sport," Ivy said. Well... more demanded.

I tried to come up with an answer and failed. The sport/game line was blurry. Ivy's triumphant smile told me she took my silence as a victory.

"You shouldn't waste your time with foolish games," she said. "Mr. Ryan is a great sword master. You'd be wiser to beg him to teach you useful skills."

"What do you know?" I asked. Mr. Ryan _was_ an amazing fencer, but how did this idiot know that?

"I've observed him."

"A while ago you didn't even know what fencing was. Now you can spot an expert?"

"I wasn't referring to your _dance lessons_ ," Ivy said. "I watched Mr. Ryan in the gymnasium last night after dinner. Rest assured, boy, I know a master when I see one."

"What was he doing?" I asked, more curious than annoyed.

Ivy looked at me as though I was the stupidest creature to have walked the earth.

"Practising sword forms." She said it slowly to emphasise my stupidity. " _Real sword forms_. Not prancing about. Are you listening, boy?"

I wasn't. I was imagining what other cool stuff I might talk Mr. Ryan into teaching me.

***

I went down to the gymnasium after dinner, to see if Mr. Ryan was actually there. Ivy already waited in the hallway by the door. Her smirk said she'd known I would come and waited to be proven correct. Ivy didn't speak; instead, she held a finger to her lips and silently opened the door a few inches. I was a good head taller than Ivy, and we both looked through the gap together. Mr. Ryan moved around the gym with one of the wooden swords from the rack. I'd dabbled in a few martial arts in my fourteen years, and I recognised a kata when I saw one. Mr. Ryan moved from parries, to lunges, to slashing strikes as countless invisible opponents fell to his blade. For an older (and chubby) guy he was remarkably fast and graceful. Finally, he leapt an improbable distance and struck down his last enemy with a powerful overhand blow. Then he drew himself up and stood still, sword at the ready. It had been as awesome as any ninja-filled movie I'd ever seen.

"Are you going to skulk out in the hallway all night?" Mr. Ryan asked. He was out of breath, and he didn't turn to look in our direction as he spoke.

I pushed the door open. We were already busted.

"We didn't mean to disturb you," Ivy said politely. Mr. Ryan and Gran warranted good manners.

"Yeah, sorry about that," I added.

Mr. Ryan relaxed out of his stance.

"I'm not so out of practice that a little watching is enough to throw off my concentration," he said. "Did you guys want something?"

Did I ever!

"What martial art was that?" I asked. Despite the Japanese-style practice sword, it hadn't looked like kendo or aikido.

"It's a blend of a lot of different things," Mr. Ryan said. "And some I made up myself."

"How many martial arts have you studied?"

"Most of them. I started with karate and judo when I was younger than you. By the time I was a teenager, I'd added others, and I continued for my years in the army. A fair number of guys in my unit had similar interests. The sword forms have no practical use, but I find they act as a sort of meditation."

My next question burst out.

"Will you teach me that stuff?" I asked.

"I don't know," Mr. Ryan said. "The fencing is just a sport like baseball or soccer. Most of the other stuff is potentially more dangerous..."

Amazingly, it was Ivy who convinced him.

"Mr. Ryan, you said these techniques are of your own creation?" she asked.

"Partly," he said. "And partly a blending of traditional techniques."

"And have you taught them to anyone?"

I wasn't sure where she was going.

"Mostly no," Mr. Ryan said. "I taught the knife fighting to men in my unit, but that's it."

"If you fail to pass on your knowledge and skills, they'll be lost when you die," Ivy said. "Isn't that the _main reason_ a master takes an apprentice?"

Mr. Ryan considered that for a moment. Then he turned to me.

"It won't be like the fencing," he said. " _If_ your grandmother and your parents agree, I'll expect a high level of dedication on your part. The first time you show signs of slacking off, we're done—understood?"

"Understood." I'd have to convince Gran. My parents wouldn't care.

"We'll train morning and evening," Mr. Ryan said. "I believe your afternoons are already spoken for."

I heard the dismissal in his voice, and I didn't want to push my luck, so I towed Ivy toward the door, pulling it shut behind us. Out in the hallway, she shook off my hand.

"Thanks," I said, and meant it.

"I didn't intercede on _your_ behalf," Ivy said, striding away towards the stairs. "My actions were for Mr. Ryan's benefit."

I watched her go, not knowing what she meant, and (if I'm being honest) not caring. My summer was getting even better.

***

Gran agreed to my new lessons with the conditions that I continue teaching Ivy and behave myself. I suspected she was partly just happy knowing that I'd have no unscheduled time for the foreseeable future. Gran made no secret of her opinions on television and video games. I figured I could still do those things at night after my evening training with Mr. Ryan. It never worked out that way.

Martial arts training with Mr. Ryan wasn't like the fencing had been. Each morning we began with calisthenics and a run down the gravel road ending at Glastonbury Manor. Stretching followed, and then Mr. Ryan would teach me how to fight. For the first week of mornings he showed me empty handed techniques: strikes, blocks, and throws. He ordered a section of wrestling mat, and after it arrived, grappling and ground fighting were added to the mix. Gran made another call to my father, and a wide range of martial arts uniforms and equipment arrived on the front steps. I assumed Mr. Ryan had given her the shopping list. The biggest surprise for me was that Ivy sometimes sat cross-legged in an empty corner of the gymnasium and watched us train. She didn't make a sound except for an occasional giggle when I embarrassed myself, but I didn't let it get me down; Ivy had been the deciding factor in Mr. Ryan agreeing to teach me.

I hurt every day and wore a remarkable number of bruises at any given time. Mr. Ryan held back because I was a kid, but he pushed me as hard as he thought I could handle. It made me want to work harder, to show him how tough I was. I didn't get to touch a sword or any other practice weapon for the first week. The evening practices consisted of me trying to imitate Mr. Ryan as he moved through his sword katas. He told me there was no point in holding a sword if I couldn't put my feet in the right places.

I can honestly say that I gave all of it my best effort, arriving exhausted for my lessons with Ivy, but she was unexpectedly cool, and let me nap while she surfed. Things got harder when I lost my afternoon naps.

### Chapter 7 – Gardening

Gran put the computer lessons on hold the following Monday. The season for planting had arrived, and I suspected that napping in the vegetable garden would prove problematic. After an intense morning with Mr. Ryan, where I finally got to hold a practice sword, and a lunch eaten alone, I went out back to find Ivy. She'd already started without me.

Ivy had laid out rows across the entire garden with a pointy stick. She'd laid set packets of seeds at the end of each row. The first packet displayed a picture of carrots. Ivy looked at home in the garden, and based on her lack of experience with modern conveniences, I already suspected she came from a new-age compound full of hippy-dippy types. She seemed like a girl with crystals and yoga in her past.

"You took your time," she said.

Ivy wore a flower-print sundress and a wide-brimmed hat. Her bare feet were already covered in dirt.

"I just finished lunch," I said. "Nobody told me an exact time. What are you doing?"

"I'm choosing the best placement for the different types of plants. I'm not familiar with many of them."

"How do you know the best placement then?"

"Last week, while _other people_ slept, I researched them on your worldwide spider's web."

Ivy had been calling the internet that since she'd misheard me. It would have been nicer to correct her, but it was still too funny. I turned away and coughed to hide my laugh.

"I've been laying out the rows for the different plants. Make sure you don't alter the order."

I looked at the line of seed packets on the ground.

"What difference does it make?"

"Some of the plants will grow taller, blocking the sun's light from others, hindering their growth. Other find shade desirable," Ivy said.

"They're arranged by height?"

"Not only height. Certain plants repel pests that eat or damage others. Placing them next to each other discourages those creatures. I've been charged with teaching you. I will show you how to plant each type of seed."

"Don't you just make hole and drop in a seed?" I asked.

I figured Ivy was messing with me because I'd done some teasing during the computer lessons. She gave me her best you're-a-moron look.

"Each plant requires a different depth and spacing as well as less or more compaction of the soil. The individual seeds will have their own needs."

Their own needs?

"And how do you determine that?"

"You ask them." Ivy said it as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Now she wanted to talk to seeds... awesome.

Ivy squatted down at the end of a row and tore open a package of radish seeds. She poured a few into her palm and held them out for me to see.

"Life is most fragile at its beginning," she said, pushing around the tiny seeds. "All creatures need care and nurture to reach their full potential."

She was really into the gardening! Then she plucked one seed from the rest and tossed it over her shoulder, onto the lawn.

"Why'd you do that?" I asked.

"It was already dead." Ivy peered at me from under the wide brim of her hat. "Couldn't you tell?"

"Nope, it looked the same as the others."

"Be sure to show me the ones _you_ plant," Ivy said.

The crazy continued on from there. Ivy watched me like a hawk, and the specificity of her instruction led me to add OCD to her list of malfunctions. The afternoon felt as if it lasted forever, but like all things, it did eventually come to an end. That end was a long series of reasons why my use of the garden hose was incorrect. Finally, I shoved the nozzle into Ivy's hands and left her to it. If gardening was that complicated, nobody'd bother. From what I'd seen, plants managed to grow on their own. Getting to know them personally... _wasn't_ necessary.

***

I washed up for dinner and found a surprise waiting at the table. Gran had a new boarder. A big man I didn't recognise sat with Gran, Mr. Ryan, and Ivy. He was tall, thick, and what remained of his hair was dark black with a few wisps of grey. I couldn't tell _exactly_ how old he was at a glance; I guessed somewhere in age between Mr. Ryan and my grandmother. His eyes were dark brown, almost black. The only other person I'd seen with similar eyes was my father. When the man smiled, I knew there was no relation. My father never smiled.

"Jack, this is Mr. Smith," Gran said. "Mr. Smith, this is my grandson, Jack."

"Nice to meet you," Mr. Smith said.

"Nice to meet you too." I took the last empty chair at the table.

"Mr. Smith will be staying with us for the week," Gran told me. "He comes by once a year on business."

"What business are you in?" I asked. Mr. Smith looked rough around the edges for a businessman.

"I'm a blacksmith," he said. "The last name is coincidental."

He made an exaggerated wink, and I couldn't help laughing.

"What work is there around here for a blacksmith?"

"Technically, I'm working as a farrier," he said. "Do you know what that is?"

Due to my interest in oddball stuff, I did.

"You shoe horses."

"That's right," Mr. Smith said. "It's not the most interesting part of my job, but it pays the bills. There are fancy race horse owners in the area who pay my travel and expenses to come out here every year. I wasn't going to do it anymore, so I hiked up the rates. Do you know what they did?"

I shook my head.

"They paid them." He laughed at his own joke. "Your grandmother has the best food in these parts and her own smithy. You can't argue with that!"

Mr. Smith attacked the ham on his plate with gusto.

"You have a _smithy_?" I asked Gran. At some point her place had to run out of surprises.

"The small building behind the carriage house," she said. "This property used to be self-sufficient. Mr. Smith is the only person to use it in the last century."

"It was well designed by the first guy," Mr. Smith said around a mouthful of ham. "Except for the dust, it looked as if he'd just hung up his tools and walked away. Then somebody locked the door behind him, and I was the first to open it in a hundred years. I don't know if any of that's true, but it surely felt that way the first time your grandmother let me in. I use it as my home-away-from-home for the days I'm here."

"I'd like to see that," I said. "Can I watch you make something?"

"Not a problem. I'll be around for a week, on and off. I'll be out there from sunup tomorrow till lunchtime."

My days were mostly full. Before I could thank him and tell him I was busy, Mr. Ryan spoke.

"I'm going out tomorrow morning, to tie up the last loose ends of the job I was doing. You can take the morning off. Sometimes, a break is a good thing."

I determined to get up early and see blacksmithing firsthand. I'd watched a lot of YouTube videos, and I _was_ more interested in knives and swords than horseshoes, but it'd still be cool.

***

After evening sword practice, I took a quick shower and went to bed early, setting the clock radio for 6 a.m., so I'd be up in good time. It had been a long day, and I fell asleep at once, only to wake again in the middle of the night. The light of an almost full moon was shining right in my face like an annoying street light. It's dark around Gran's house at night. I'm talking _dark_. Obviously, there are no street lights, but there are also no neighbours or city lights. If you've ever been camping or way out in the country, you know the _dark_ I'm talking about. Because of that, and because there's no one to look in, I'd been leaving my curtains wide-open to get the most breeze through the window screens. I got up to shut them and block out the annoying moonlight. That's when I saw Ivy.

Minus the bright moonlight, a hundred people could have been milling around in Gran's backyard and I'd never have seen them. Even with the illumination, it took a second to decide what I was looking at. I squinted and pushed my nose up against the screen for a better look. Sure enough, Ivy was outside in the middle of the night, though I couldn't make out her face. A small girl in a white dress (or nighty) walked the rows of the vegetable garden over and over. With the moonlight it was still pretty dark, but I figured it was her. _Who else could it be?_

Ivy's movements were mesmerising, even at a distance. A sound (I believed was her singing) tickled at the edges of my hearing, but it was so faint I couldn't decide if I'd imagined it. Again and again she walked the garden, retracing her previous steps. Once, I thought I saw a glowing footprint left in her wake. As with the singing, it was ethereal, and I chocked it up to imagination and sleepiness. Then Ivy finished whatever it was she was doing, walked to the back edge of the lawn, and stared into the dark forest.

She stood there for a good while, and I wondered if I should go outside. Maybe sleepwalking was another of her malfunctions. I knew you shouldn't wake sleep walkers, but I figured you shouldn't let them wander off into the woods either. At the exact moment I decided to go out, she turned around and walked towards the house. I heard the patio door open and shut below me.

I stumbled back to my bed and dropped into it. The clock radio said I'd been watching her for over two hours, but it had only felt like minutes. Dreams can be like that. When the buzzer went off a few hours later, I was certain I'd dreamt the whole thing.

Chapter 8 – Hammer and Tongs

I felt exhausted when my alarm sounded the next morning, and I considered hitting the snooze bar or turning it off. With Mr. Ryan away, I could enjoy my first sleep-in in a long while. On the other hand, the chance to watch real-life blacksmithing might not come again. That thought pushed me out of bed. I looked out the window at the yard and garden, but nothing appeared out of place, so I pulled on the clothes I'd left in a heap on the floor and headed to the smithy.

Ms. Mopat wouldn't put out breakfast for another hour, meaning that my rumbling stomach must wait. I _had_ looked in the carriage house before, only finding two old flat-tired cars, covered in a thick layer of dust. I'd thought the building behind it was just a shack. From the outside, there was nothing fancy about the smithy.

The smithy's two wide doors, that had previously been padlocked, stood wide open. Mr. Smith had pushed them right back against the walls, and he was already at work inside, shovelling coal into the stone forge. A huge set of bellows hung suspended to one side of the forge, and an anvil, that must have weighed three hundred pounds, sat on an old stump between us. It was dim inside, even with the doors spread wide, but I could see tools hanging on the walls and half a wooden barrel next to the anvil. A heavy workbench with a leg vise ran down one side wall. Any more stuff and the place would have been crowded.

Mr. Smith saw me as he scooped up a last small shovelful of coal from a coal box on the wall opposite the bench.

"Good morning," he said.

He sounded more awake than me. I'd never understand morning people.

"Good morning."

"I'm surprised to see you this early. I liked to sleep-in when I was your age."

"I didn't want to miss anything."

"So you have a genuine interest then?" Mr. Smith gave me an appraising look.

"Yeah, I've read a few books and watched YouTube videos."

"Ah well, some of those are excellent, and the rest are junk!" Mr. Smith grinned. "I might as well show you how to do things right. We'll start by lighting the forge. You know what this black stuff is, don't you?"

"Coal?"

"Close. This is coke. Harder to come by these days, but cleaner. I have the bin filled every couple of years."

"What's the difference?" I asked.

"You can think of it as diet coal." Mr. Smith looked at my blank expression and shrugged.

"Bad joke I guess," he went on, pushing the black nuggets back from the centre of the forge. "Coke is coal with the impurities cooked out in a big oven. Pass me those pieces of wood."

I handed Mr. Smith two handfuls of kindling-sized wood from a galvanised pail next to the anvil. He arranged the sticks of wood in the little space he'd cleared. Then he pointed up at a long wooden handle attached to a rope and pulley.

"That works the bellows and blows air into the forge. After I light this, you pull that to fan the flames."

The handle moved smoothly downward, and a clever counterweight pulled it back up again. Within a minute, a fire was burning.

"It'll take a while to heat up," Mr. Smith said. "Will you do me a favour and fill the barrel with water?"

"Sure, is that the quenching tank?" I asked.

"So you have read up on the subject. That's the _slack tub,_ and, for our purposes today, the quenching tank too. For finer work, the quenching tank would get oil."

I took a while to fill the half barrel with buckets of water, although running back to the hose at the main house took most of that time. When it was full, I asked what came next.

"Do you want to learn how to make something?" Mr. Smith asked.

"Definitely!"

He looked me up and down.

"I have safety glasses and an extra apron, but you _should_ wear steel-toed boots," he said. "Safety first."

"I've got a pair in the house."

"Go get them, lad."

I ran back to the house and up to my room, grabbing my parade boots from under the bed. I'd spent a ridiculous amount of time spit-polishing them over the last year. Quickly, I exchanged footwear and headed back. Mr. Smith looked down at my gleaming boots.

"Those won't shine back up once you do real work in them."

"Doesn't matter," I said. "I'm not going back to military school, anyway."

He handed me a leather apron and a pair of safety glasses. The apron was surprisingly heavy.

"I used to teach classes on the side, to make extra cash," he said as he moved the coals around with a fire rake. "We always started by making basic tools. Would you like to give it a try?"

I nodded, unable to believe my luck.

One of the best mornings of my life followed as Mr. Smith showed me how to adjust the coals, work the bellows, and to recognise the different colours steel turns at different temperatures. He showed me when it was right for working and when it needed to return to the fire. I learned the names of many of the tools in the smithy and what the various types of hammers were for. Step by step we each made a set of long tongs. Mr. Smith demonstrated with his, and I did my best to copy every strike of his hammer. He showed me how to thicken the metal, and flatten it, and even how to make a hole without a drill. I made a few mistakes, and added to the scrap bin, but Mr. Smith only laughed and said it was all part of learning. The morning passed in what seemed a few glorious minutes.

I'd just finished riveting on the pivot pin and quenching my tongs in a cloud of steam, when I noticed Mr. Ryan watching at the open doorway. It was the first time I'd seen him in a suit. He had a laptop bag slung over one shoulder, and he was giving me a funny look.

"What's wrong?" I asked with hammer in one hand and new tongs in the other.

Mr. Ryan shook his head.

"Sorry, Jack, I had a moment of déjà vu, watching you work."

He walked the rest of the way into the smithy and pointed at my tongs, "Did _you_ make those?"

"He sure did," Mr. Smith said. "Best student I ever taught. He pays attention to detail, follows instruction, and understands first time."

"I made some mistakes," I said, blushing at the unexpected compliments.

"Never twice and fewer than most. He's a real natural."

"May I see them?" Mr. Ryan asked.

I handed him the tongs, and he examined them closely, opening and closing them several times. He also had a try at wiggling the pivot point side to side.

"Tight, but not binding," he said handing them back. "Nice."

"A natural," Mr. Smith repeated. "You've a knowledgeable look about you too."

"Only as a shopper," Mr. Ryan said. "I collected custom knives and swords for a fair number of years, and I got to know a few guys in the business."

"They aren't that good," I said. Looking at my tongs, all I saw were the mistakes. "Here, the handle is crooked, and the faces of the jaws don't meet perfectly, and you can see the places where I missed with the hammer." The longer I looked, the worse they appeared.

Mr. Smith laughed.

"What's so funny?" I asked.

"That right there is the mark of a true craftsman," he said. "You only see the mistakes. I've taught dozens of people, of all ages and backgrounds what I taught you this morning, Jack. This is actually the lesson I did on the last day of my three day course. None were as talented as you. In another time and place, folks would compete to have you for their apprentice."

I opened and closed the tongs, fully embarrassed now.

"Thanks," I said, "and thanks for teaching me. Oh crap, what time is it?"

"Lunch time," Mr. Ryan supplied.

"You didn't get any of your real work done. Didn't you need to make horseshoes this morning?" I felt terrible about wasting so much of Mr. Smith's time.

"I buy the shoes and adjust them to size on site," he said. "I use the portable, gas forge on the back of my truck."

Something didn't add up.

"Then why do you need Gran's smithy?"

"I don't," Mr. Smith said, "but I enjoy stepping back in time now and again. At home I have a natural gas forge and electric everything; even a pneumatic hammer to do the heavy lifting. This is for fun. Your enthusiasm made my morning. Let's spread out the coals and eat lunch."

I stared down at my tongs, uncertain what to do with them, but Mr. Smith read my thoughts.

"Most of my students take their first tools home, to begin a hobby shop, or hang them on a wall to display." He looked at the tools hanging above the bench. "Seeing as you live here now, it seems like you could add yours to the collection."

After putting all the smithy's tools back, there was one empty spot on the wall. My tongs fit perfectly.

Chapter 9 – Eyes in the Darkness

I ate a lunch of sandwiches and salad with Mr. Smith and Mr. Ryan. Mostly, I listened as they discussed sword and knife making. Both were long-time enthusiasts, and the conversation was as intense and exclusive as nerdy conversations always are. It doesn't matter if they're about sports, or comics, or music; when people with a genuine love of something meet up, the discussions are always the same. Good-natured arguing ensued over things I didn't know about, and once I finished my meal, I went out back to find Ivy. I wasn't sure what there could be to do on the day after planting the seeds.

Knowing Ivy—there'd be some kind of crazy.

Ivy had already started working in the garden before I got back there. Green covered the bare furrows we'd left the day before. Little shoots had sprung up across the garden, and, from a distance, it looked almost as green as the surrounding lawn. I stood and stared, amazed.

Ivy squatted in the closest row; her sundress had slid back revealing most of her smooth, shapely legs. She plucked shoot after shoot, flinging them to the grass beside her, and worked with an expression of intense concentration on her face that was downright adorable. I'm not sure how long I watched her work before she noticed me.

"What are you gaping at, boy?" she asked. An angry scowl replaced her thoughtful expression.

"Nothing," I said, trying to cover my embarrassment.

"I'm well accustomed to being gawked at," Ivy said. She'd returned to her weeding. "Most have the decency to be less obvious."

What a stuck-up brat!

"I wasn't gawking at you, so you can get over yourself, Princess. I'm just amazed at how much sprouted up overnight." It was half true.

"Unfortunately, there are more weeds than vegetables," Ivy said. "We must pull the bad, to allow the good to flourish."

"How do you know which is which?"

Ivy gave me her you're-a-moron scowl and sighed.

"The desirable plants will be in the rows where we planted them. Most of the weeds will not. Use the pictures on the packets for comparison. If you're unsure, ask, and I'll show you the differences. _You_ can start on the _far_ side."

Ivy didn't bother to look at me as she said the last. I wanted to ask if she'd really been out in the night, but how do you bring up something like that? It had almost certainly been a dream, and I didn't want to give her any more ammunition, so I walked to the far side of the garden and started pulling weeds.

After weeding my first row, I marvelled again at how fast plants grew. Gran's vegetable garden was bigger than most people's whole backyard, and Ivy and I didn't meet in the middle until just before dinner. My legs and back ached, and I was filthy and sweaty from the gardening and the smithy. We'd avoided talking all afternoon, and ignoring each other had been easy with the width of the garden between us, but the closer she got, the harder I found it to ignore Ivy. We were stuck together for the summer. Gran had made that much clear. I decided one of us needed to take the high road and make peace.

"What's your problem, anyway?" I asked.

" _Currently_ , my problem is _you,_ boy."

"You have a crappy attitude, you know that?"

So much for diplomacy.

"Nothing about me is any of your concern. _Including my attitude_. If you think I haven't felt your eyes on me, you're mistaken. I can imagine the sick thoughts running through your brain. I know all too well what your sort gets up to, given the chance."

_That's harsh._ Yeah, I'd checked her out a little, but give me a break, my last three schools had been all-boys schools, and I was fourteen years old. I hadn't been gawking, or leering, or anything. Ivy was arrogant and delusional, and I was angry enough that I forgot she might be legitimately mentally ill. Although, you'd think my grandmother would've mentioned that.

"People like you think the world revolves around them," I said, tearing out a weed with excessive force.

"And what _people_ are you talking about?" Ivy asked, ripping out a weed of her own.

We'd almost run out of weeds.

"Pretty people," I said. "Everything is easier for you, and you believe that because of your looks you're entitled to a free ride." I ripped out another weed. "Well I've got news for you. With your miserable personality, it doesn't matter how good looking you are. Someday you'll be old, and all that will be left is your inner crapulence." Yeah, I said inner crapulence. It came to me. I tore out a few more weeds. Thankfully, we were almost done.

"You think me _pretty_?" Ivy asked.

She sounded genuinely unsure, but I'm not an idiot. Nobody _that_ good looking doesn't know it... except in TV shows. Ivy's lame attempt at fishing for compliments was the final straw.

"Give me a break," I said. I marched back to the house to wash up for dinner. Ivy could have the last few weeds.

***

Ivy and I avoided eye contact throughout dinner, and I had my usual evening of sword practice with Mr. Ryan. I felt exhausted by bedtime, but I couldn't sleep. After a few hours of tossing and turning, I gave up and moved to the long bench under my window. The back yard was lit by a now full moon, and I peered out into the darkness to see if Ivy would appear again. Close to midnight, when I'd reached a tired enough state that I was sure I'd have no more difficulties falling asleep, I finally heard the patio door open and shut below me.

Ivy walked outside in her white cotton nighty and strode with purpose across the lawn to the back edge of the yard. She bypassed the garden and stood at the edge of the forest that bounded Gran's property on three sides. The forest ended at the property line, and although there wasn't a fence, the years of trimming had made the edge of the dense trees and bushes wall-like.

Ivy stood completely still, staring into the trees. I squinted, trying to determine what she looked at. Suddenly, dark movement, and what I felt sure were eyes, caught my attention as something moved through the trees towards Ivy. She hadn't stirred, apparently unaware of the animal I'd seen. _It's probably just a racoon or a skunk_ , I told myself as I tugged on my jeans and running shoes. I knew it wasn't either of those animals. There _are_ bears in the woods around Gran's, and coyotes, and possibly wolves too. Ivy stood alone in the dark—maybe sleepwalking—and waiting to get eaten. Annoying or not, I couldn't let that happen.

I dashed down the main stairs. The lights were out, but I knew the way. Only when I'd reached the edge of the garden did it occur to me that I might have woken Mr. Ryan, or scooped up a weapon. Even a flashlight would've been prudent. I didn't call out to Ivy for fear of startling her, or the wild animal I'd seen, and while getting sprayed by a skunk isn't lethal—I didn't want to experience it.

By the time I stood right behind Ivy, I saw the eyes. I counted seven pairs of them. Given how scared I was, that might have been off by a couple. The eyes hovered at waist height, and they definitely didn't belong to skunks or racoons. I saw vague shadows and glowing yellow eyes staring from the darkness and nothing more.

Ivy didn't turn back to me until I spoke.

"What are you doing out here?" I whispered.

"You scared me," she said. "You shouldn't be out here."

" _I_ shouldn't be out here?" I didn't look away from the eyes to see her expression. " _You_ shouldn't be out here. Move slowly behind me, and then we're going back to the house. Don't make any sudden movements or run."

"What are you talking about?" Ivy asked.

"The _eyes_ in the woods!" I pulled Ivy behind me. This wasn't the time to humour her crazy.

"They are no danger to us," Ivy said.

I held her behind me and pushed her back towards the house. She didn't fight me.

"There's a whole pack of animals." I said. I forced myself to keep my voice calm. Animals can sense fear. "I expect they're deciding whether to eat us. Keep moving."

Silently, I was counting my steps and expecting to see the whatever-they-weres coming after us.

"We're safe as long as we don't leave the yard," Ivy said. "They can't come onto the grass."

"What?"

"They are not welcome on the property," Ivy said. "Unless you go into the forest you're safe."

And the crazy was back.

"I don't know if those are wolves, coyotes, or wild dogs, but I _do_ know they won't be respecting my grandmother's property rights. We're almost there."

We'd passed the garden with no sign of pursuit. A little further and we could turn and run if necessary. I didn't want to do that unless there was no other choice. Humans are one of the least impressive animals, from a physical standpoint, and there aren't many predators we can outrun. I glanced back. We'd reached the patio doors.

"Ivy, open the door and get inside," I said.

I heard the door open behind me.

"I'm inside, you can come in too," Ivy said.

I backed into the mudroom off of the patio and turned to Ivy. Her face was lit by the moonlight streaming through the French doors, and she looked up at me curiously. Once we were safely inside, I lost most of my cool and grabbed her by her little shoulders.

"What were you thinking? You could have gotten yourself killed!" I may have spat on her.

She studied my face closely.

"Did you come out to _rescue_ me?" she asked.

Her intense, earnest expression knocked the anger out of me.

"I saw something moving towards you through the trees. It didn't look like you'd seen it so..."

"You worried, and you came to save me? That was very brave. Thank you."

Polite Ivy was freaking me out.

"What were you thinking, standing out there in the middle of the night, in the first place?"

"Sometimes, the most you can do is show your enemies that you're not afraid," Ivy said. "You have to look them in the eye and stand your ground. I'm sorry I frightened you."

"I'm more concerned that you don't have the sense to be afraid for yourself. Promise me you won't go out at night again."

"I can't promise that. There are still things I must do at night in the garden. I promised the mistress of the house I would take proper care of it."

Ivy looked deadly serious. _You should be locked up_ , I thought.

"Then promise you'll come get me first. That way I can bring a flashlight and a weapon, OK?"

"I promise, Jack," Ivy said before heading to bed.

I didn't realise until later that she'd called me by my name.

Chapter 10 – New Beginnings

We didn't become instant besties after that night, but the next morning when I passed her on the stairs, Ivy said, "Good morning, Jack." and gave me an honest-to-goodness smile. Every rude thing she'd said to that point was erased by her smile. _I_ couldn't help smiling afterwards, and Mr. Ryan asked if I felt OK. If you're thinking Jack's a sucker for a cute girl—it's probably true. I considered telling Mr. Ryan about Ivy and the animals in the forest, but I didn't want to get her in trouble. Besides, she'd agreed not to go out alone again, and I figured that was good enough.

There were no other opportunities to try blacksmithing again before Mr. Smith left. It was disappointing, and I considered how I might convince Gran to let me use the smithy on my own. Books and the internet couldn't replace a proper teacher like Mr. Smith, but lots of other people had taught themselves. I can tell you from experience, that if you pay attention, and follow the directions, you can learn almost anything from books. Although, they have to be good books, written by people who know their stuff. I decided blacksmithing would be a new hobby. Everything (minus Gran's permission) was already in place, and I planned to start with simple tools, at least for a few weeks, before moving onto samurai swords.

On the evening of the day Mr. Smith left, Mr. Ryan mixed things up and took the lesson outside. To that point we'd trained in the gymnasium (not including our daily run) and getting out of the slightly stinky room, and into the fresh air, was wonderful.

Mr. Ryan told me to meet him out back after dinner. He stood waiting beside two long, black plastic rifle cases, and I wondered if he was adding shooting to our diverse repertoire. Mr. Ryan was already limbering up, and I realised that he'd lost weight since I'd first met him. His belly had shrunk, and there was a definition to his jaw that hadn't existed before. The change had been so gradual that I hadn't noticed.

"Are we shooting?" I asked. I'd learned about guns and marksmanship at military school.

"No," Mr. Ryan said with a chuckle. "I don't think your grandmother would go for us shooting in her backyard." He kicked one of the plastic cases at his feet. "These aren't guns."

"Those _are_ rifle cases aren't they?"

"Yeah, I figured they'd do for our purposes, and they were available."

"What's in them then?"

"Something I commissioned Mr. Smith to make for us. Why don't you have a look?"

I squatted, flipped the latches on the nearest case, and opened it, excited to see what it might contain. Inside the case lay a broadsword. The sword had a leather wrapped handle (long enough for two hands), a simple acorn pommel, and a cross guard, made from an unadorned piece of bar stock. The straight blade was almost three feet long, ending in a rounded point. It was rectangular in cross-section rather than tapered to the edges. That sword wouldn't cut butter, let alone slay dragons. I picked it up, discovering it was also _heavy_.

"Are these practice swords?" I asked.

"More like weight training," Mr. Ryan said. "From now on, you'll be doing the sword forms with that. Next week, we'll start sparring with the bamboo swords and the kendo armour. Assuming... you're still keen?"

I found it hard to imagine doing a single kata with the heavy blade, but I smiled anyway. We were sparring next week! Visions of my highflying swashbuckling danced in front of me. _Sweet!_

"Bring it on," I said.

"We'll add other things to the cases as we go. It seemed silly to make scabbards for these sword-shaped clubs. Even so, I expect you to treat it as if it was a real sword, the same as the other practice blades. Bad habits lead to bad cuts and missing fingers. Let's start the first kata."

The first of Mr. Ryan's katas was the simplest and the only one he'd said I'd learned passably well. With the steel practice sword replacing the wooden one, it was like starting from scratch. The blade was ten times as heavy, and the simple movements became incredibly challenging. I was huffing and puffing after one try, and it felt as though my shoulders would fall off. For the first time, I was tempted to tell Mr. Ryan that I couldn't do it, that it was too tough for me. I let the tip of my blade fall to the ground and turned to tell him, but the words wouldn't come out. Mr. Ryan had a practice sword that was significantly bigger and looked far heavier than mine. He danced across the other side of the lawn with the same grace he'd always shown using the lighter wooden katana.

I felt ashamed of my weakness and once again determined to someday match Mr. Ryan's skill, starting the simple kata again. By the end of the evening, I couldn't lift my arms. Mr. Ryan put my practice sword back in its case and carried both cases towards the house.

"Take a hot bath," he said. "Soak and then stretch. It'll take time for your muscles to acclimatise to the weight of the sword, and years to become fast and controlled with it."

Every muscle from shoulder to fingertip twitched. I felt near to tears.

"It sure is heavy," I said.

Mr. Ryan gave me an understanding look.

"It is, but imagine that somebody was trying to hit you too."

That was more than my imagination had energy for. I sat on the grass for a few minutes after Mr. Ryan had gone, working myself up to climbing Gran's stairs. Even changing out of my clothes seemed a herculean task. The last light of dusk was rapidly disappearing, and I rolled onto all fours, pushing myself up slowly like a ninety year old man. Not a _fit_ ninety-year-old either. I felt very slightly better once I found my feet.

We'd finished our practice near to one side of Gran's vast yard. As I turned to head for the house, I heard a loud snap from the forest behind me. The edge of the property ran only a few dozen steps away, and an image of the glowing eyes in the darkness flashed through brain. My first instinct was to run for the house, but it wasn't actually dark out yet, and that felt cowardly—sensible, but cowardly. Instead, I steeled my courage and walked towards the forest. I did only go halfway. In between me and from where the sound had come, stretched an ornamental rock garden. Gran's house had many other gardens besides the one Ivy and I tended. I stood at the edge of that garden and peered at the forest.

I couldn't see anything and was about to leave when another twig snapped loudly, not far to my front. For a second time, I considered running for the house. Instead, I picked up a golf ball sized rock from the garden. When the next snap came, I threw the rock in the direction from which I thought the sound had come. The heavy stone disappeared into the forest, and I was rewarded with a surprised yelp. I don't know who was more surprised, me or whatever I'd hit.

A low, angry growl followed.

That was it for me. I turned and ran for the back door. My pain and tiredness vanished for the time it took me to sprint the hundred yards to the house. Once inside, I needed a wall's help to keep my feet, and catching my breath seemed impossible. It was some time before my heart slowed its terrified pace.

My running scared was no smarter a plan that night than it had been when I'd gone out for Ivy. But I'd been less prepared, and less focused, without having her to worry about. Nothing followed me from the forest, and I limped upstairs to run a hot bath. I fell asleep in the tub, waking hours later, shivering in icy water. After dragging myself out, I stumbled to my room and fell face first onto my bed—already asleep again before I landed.

***

The next day I was sore in parts of my body I didn't know a person could feel pain. Mr. Ryan took pity on me and made our morning workout lighter than usual. He assured me that the best remedy for sore muscles was more exercise, and despite my scepticism it turned out that in this (along with everything else) Mr. Ryan was correct. Just pushing through the morning was tough—I didn't know if I had any afternoon garden-labour left in me.

I met Gran in the hallway before lunch, and she informed me that computer lessons would resume for a few days. Had it been the sort of thing we did in my family... I'd have hugged her.

Ivy came up to my room after lunch. She looked from me to the laptop and back.

"What do you want to learn next?" I asked.

"I don't know," Ivy said. "What do you use this computer for most often?"

I considered that. Mostly, I used it to stream TV, play online games, and surf the net. I did other stuff sometimes, but I wasn't going to tell Ivy about any of it.

"You can watch movies and TV on Netflix," I said.

"Please show me."

She actually said _please_. I almost passed out from the shock.

"What TV shows and movies do you like?"

"I don't know what they are," Ivy said.

_Crazy or messing with me_? I wondered. _Or... an escapee from a cult or commune maybe._ I recalled the no computers or electricity. Not having seen TV and movies was a distinct possibility, and for the first time, I felt truly sorry for Ivy. _No TV!_

"It's entertainment. Like plays at the theatre—stories acted out."

"Ah." Ivy smiled shyly. "Are there any love stories?"

_That figures_ , I thought. _Here come the chick flicks._

"A lot of them are, I guess," I said. "I don't watch many of those."

"What kind do you enjoy?"

"Adventure, fantasy, and anime. I watch documentaries too, to learn things."

"Why don't you choose one of your favourites? I'll start with that." Ivy said.

"OK." I flipped through the movies. "This is a classic. It's silly, but funny too."

I clicked on _The Princess Bride,_ and Ivy watched the movie, silently mesmerised, for the next hour and a half. The computer lessons looked to be taking a turn for the better, and she laughed when the movie ended.

"That _was_ a love story," she said. "It's your favourite?"

"One of them," I said. "I think it would technically be a comedy or an adventure with a romantic element. Girl movies are mushier than that. We have time for another movie before dinner."

"Choose another then, please." Ivy was already turned back to the laptop's screen.

In my experience, all girls like _Frozen_. I had to stop the film a minute in, to explain animation, demonstrating the concept with a cartoon explosion I'd drawn in the margin of one of my old textbooks. The gaps in Ivy's knowledge were unbelievable, but she accepted my explanation that the film was a far more advanced version of my crude attempt at animation. I hit Play again. Another deer-in-the-headlights session followed as Ivy watched the show, which took us to dinnertime.

"That was wonderful too, Jack! Thank you."

"No problem." It wasn't as if I'd made the movies myself.

"We'd better go to dinner now," Ivy said.

She gave the laptop a regretful glance before leaving. I learned Ivy was an incredible singer as an impressive rendition of _Do You Want to Build a Snowman?_ moved off down the third floor hallway.

***

In the middle of a morning practice I remembered something Mr. Ryan had said during our first exploration of Gran's basement.

"Did you ever check out the pool again?" I asked.

"Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you. I spoke to your grandmother, and I spent one of the rainy afternoons last week messing around in there."

Mr. Ryan snapped a lightning-fast kick at my leg. I half blocked it, dancing back. He went easy on me, but it still stung, and there'd be a bruise later.

"What's the deal?" I asked.

"The good news is the motors and pumps and everything are still functional. I put in enough water to test them and looked over the wiring."

"Are you an electrician too?"

"No, but I understand basic electricity and wiring. I've had to learn about electronics for work over the years. A few gaskets were rotten and leaky, but there are stacks of spares on a shelf, brand-new in the packages, and I replaced them. The whole thing is old, but it still works."

"What did Gran say?"

"It's the same deal as the gym. She doesn't care one way or the other. The pool never got used (or by the looks of it) _cleaned,_ and sometime forty years ago it was mothballed."

"So is it usable or not?"

Mr. Ryan stepped back and bowed. That meant we were taking a break. It was too early for us to be finished for the morning. I reflexively bowed back.

"It is, and it isn't," he said. "You _could_ use it now, but _I_ wouldn't. Easiest to show you."

Mr. Ryan led the way across the hallway and into the pool room. The first big changes were the lights. Before, only a couple of bulbs worked. Mr. Ryan had replaced the burnt-out bulbs, and the pool room shone almost as bright as the gymnasium. That additional illumination wasn't flattering. I read in a book that some women looked better by candlelight; Gran's pool room was like that. In the harsh glow of the incandescent bulbs the place looked disgusting. The little tiles were so filthy you couldn't tell what colour half of them were and mould (or _something_ ) grew everywhere. The pool was the worst part, with a few inches of water now sitting at the bottom, presumably left over from Mr. Ryan's testing of the system. I assumed it was water, but the liquid in the pool was black, and if Mr. Ryan had told me it was used motor oil—I'd have believed him. The scum growing in the pool didn't appear bothered by the dirty water, and a new ring of green/grey ran around the sides, just above the water line.

"I enjoy swimming," Mr. Ryan said, "and I've never been one to shy away from hard work, but I don't like to swim _this_ much. Your grandmother said you'd have to clean it yourself if you want to use it. Apparently, Ms. Mopat won't even come in here... not that you can blame her."

I couldn't imagine how long cleaning that pool and the rest of the room would take, and although having a pool in your house is super cool, this was more akin to having a toxic waste dump in your house.

"I'm already pretty busy with our practices and Ivy and everything."

"Yeah, I figured." Mr. Ryan headed back into the hallway. "If you change your mind later, make sure you wear a mask and rubber gloves."

I closed the door behind me, unsure if I would _ever_ open it again.

***

I asked Ivy to come watch a movie in my room after evening practice, and she accepted my invitation with none of the reluctance she'd shown before. Part of me wanted to believe she was coming to like and trust me, but most of me suspected she just wanted to see more movies. The end result was the same, so I didn't worry about which was true.

Gran's big black cat was curled up in my lap, purring and nuzzling me when Ivy arrived. Ivy stared at the cat, then up at my face, and then back down at the cat again.

"What do you think you're playing at?" Ivy asked.

She looked angry, and I had no idea what I'd done. I replayed the day in my mind, struggling to come up with an offence worthy of Ivy's anger as she stormed across the room. Only when she grabbed the cat by the scruff of its neck—and yanked it out of my lap—did I realise she wasn't talking to me. Ivy held the cat up in front of her, and she was none too gentle with it.

"You don't belong in here," she said.

Ivy said it as though she thought the cat understood English. She carried it to the doorway, and then to my utter amazement, she flung the cat down the hallway. For the first time I heard Gran's silent cat make a sound—the sound of it hitting hardwood ten feet down the hall before tearing away.

Ivy turned back to me.

"You should be ashamed of yourself," she said. "Consorting with such a creature."

Consorting?

"With a cat?"

Sometimes, I forgot Ivy was nuts. Then she'd remind me again. I was more shocked than anything.

"A cat?" Ivy looked startled, followed by embarrassed, which was followed by... something else.

"You do know what cats are, don't you?" I asked. Maybe cats were like computers.

Ivy hesitated before answering, looking unusually unsure of herself.

"That is a... naughty cat," she finally said. "How long have you been doing... what you were doing with it?"

Did I now regret my movie invitation? Oh yeah.

"If you mean petting it," I said slowly. "Since I got here. That's what you do with _pets_."

"And that's all?"

This, from a girl who'd thrown a cat down the hall?

"Sometimes it sleeps with me." I shrugged.

Ivy's eyes went wide.

"You sleep with that _thing?_ "

"It sleeps on my bed sometimes. What's the big deal? Have you got allergies or something?"

Ivy stared at me for a good minute—the same way I stared at jigsaw puzzles and complex models. Then I saw her anger slip away.

"I'm sorry for yelling at you, Jack." She looked _somewhat_ apologetic.

"What about for throwing Gran's cat?"

"That's between me and the _cat_."

She said it as though she planned to make the cat an offer it couldn't refuse—like a pint-sized feline godfather. _Wow, she's crazy_ , I thought. And not for the first time. With Ivy I'd found it was best to ignore the crazy, and when possible, change the topic.

"So do you want to watch a movie?" I asked.

"Yes, please." Ivy sat and looked at the laptop expectantly.

The rest of the evening went smoothly, but Gran's cat never visited my room again.

Chapter 11 – Bows and Arrows

Gran's vegetable garden thrived, and I was continually amazed by the rapid growth. Ivy showed me how to thin the good plants, cutting them back to encourage fewer, but larger fruits and vegetables. Even so, the garden only required a couple days attention each week and we spent most of our afternoons on computer 'lessons'.

What my parents lacked in love and affection, they'd made up for with material crap. I'd been getting substantial allowances from both for years, but not needing much of anything—and never having friends to go places with—my bank account was sizable for a boy my age. I didn't know how many other kids got their allowance by direct deposit... I guessed very few.

I ordered a sixty-inch flat panel TV/monitor and a surround-sound system online to allow us to watch movies in style. Showing Ivy TV and movies was like taking an alien on a tour of Earth. I'd be staying at Gran's for all of high school, so I thought it made sense to make improvements. Mr. Ryan helped me _borrow_ two overstuffed chairs from other empty bedrooms on the third floor, and I set up a modest theatre in my bedroom. It was only missing a concession stand.

I hadn't told Ivy about the modifications, and the next time she came for a lesson her eyes were as big as saucers. She examined the new equipment, settled herself into one chair, and stared up at the screen.

"Is that a computer too?" she asked.

"No, just a second screen attached to the laptop. It has a small computer of its own inside that lets you surf the internet and stream stuff, but that's all it can do."

She pointed to the speakers, "And these boxes?"

"They produce better sound than the speakers on the laptop. This will give you something closer to a proper movie theatre experience."

"Did you get this for me?"

"For both of us. Watching on the laptop is crappy."

"It's been wonderful!" Ivy said.

At first, I was taken aback by her intensity. Then I couldn't help laughing.

"Why don't you give this a try and see what you think?" I said.

"What are we going to watch?"

"The _Fellowship of the Ring_ movie. It seemed wrong to show you on the laptop."

"What's that?" Ivy asked, pointing at the _other_ new addition to my room.

I'd had pieces of my model airplane out on my desk before, but that was the first time she'd seen the whole thing together. She inspected my plane from props to tail.

"Is this a mechanical bird?" she asked.

_Really, airplanes too?_ I thought. _She must have driven to Gran's house._

"It's a model airplane," I said. "I'm ready to try flying it."

Ivy was fascinated by the paper and balsa WWII bomber I'd built. It was the only project I'd brought with me to Glastonbury Manor. I'd barely started the model when I found out about the move, and the pieces had packed easily enough. The finished plane had a four foot wingspan, the flight controls worked, and I'd painted it to accurately resemble the real deal. My plane was pretty awesome. One thing Gran's house had in spades was level lawn, giving me my pick of one-tenth-scale landing strips.

"How long did this take you to craft?" Ivy asked.

"Since I got here, plus a few more weeks. I'd already bought the parts and supplies. Most people buy the pre-built ones these days. You basically just snap on the wings and you're ready to fly."

"Why did you build this then? It looked very complicated."

Maybe she _had_ noticed the plane, in progress.

"No fun in that," I said. "I was more interested in building it than flying."

"But you _do_ intend to fly it?"

"I won't know if I built it right otherwise."

Ivy gave me a funny look, but it made perfect sense to me.

I booted up the laptop and inserted a Blu-ray disc from my small collection. From the first preview to the closing credits, Ivy was glued to the screen. Mostly, _I_ watched Ivy as she immersed herself in the story and moved from one emotion to another. She enjoyed that movie more than I'd ever enjoyed anything, gradually creeping forward until she sat on the edge of her seat. _Not just an expression_ , I thought. When I flipped the lights back on, Ivy grinned from ear to ear.

"That was amazing," she said. "You were right, it's _much_ better this way!"

Her smile slipped.

"What?" I asked.

"It was a strange ending. Don't you wish to know if the quest will succeed?"

_Classic Ivy_. I laughed.

"What did I say to make you laugh?" She looked less happy.

"It's a trilogy," I said. "That was the first of three parts, _not_ the ending."

"Do you have the other parts?"

I was relieved I did; Ivy looked as though she might kill the guy who told her no.

"I do," I said, "and the Hobbit movies too. They aren't as good."

"Put in the second part!"

"We don't have time. It's only thirty minutes till dinner."

"It can't be. We _always_ watch two movies."

"That was almost four hours long."

Ivy checked my clock radio.

"It felt shorter," she said. "I suppose, I should go back to my room until dinner."

"You can stay and talk... if you want to," I said.

"What would we talk about?"

Ivy looked ready to make a run for it.

"How about the movie? Who's your favourite character?"

"Legolas," Ivy said without hesitation. She sat back in her chair.

_They all like Orlando_ , I thought. _How predictable_.

"Yeah, he's good looking, I guess."

"That's not why I like him. You can be incredibly stupid sometimes, Jack."

She didn't say it with any of the meanness the summer had started with, and I let it slide. She _had_ added the _sometimes_.

"Why do you like him then?"

"He's an amazing archer. I've never seen such speed or skill."

"You know it's not real, right?"

"I understand he's an actor, but his skill with a bow is unprecedented."

"I'm pretty sure Orlando Bloom, the guy who played Legolas, is no Robin Hood in real life."

"Who's Robin Hood?"

"A famous outlaw hero and a legendary archer. He's fictional too."

_Like an alien from another planet_. I was tempted to check her room for the pod she'd hatched from.

"Do you have his movies?"

"I'm sure I can find them. You really like archery, don't you?"

"All of my... family are great archers. We're known for it."

You don't hear people say that very often. I should tell you that although we were getting along, polite Ivy was in no way less weird than rude Ivy had been.

"There's old archery equipment in the storage room off of the gym," I said.

"Truly?" Excited Ivy was back.

"Yeah, a few old bows and a bunch of arrows. Many of the arrows are damaged, and probably junk, but there are lots. I'm sure some of them are usable."

I hadn't been tempted to take out the archery equipment myself. A few weeks at a summer camp had taught me that archery _wasn't_ something for which I had an aptitude. Ivy looked more excited with every word, and seeing her happy made me happy.

"Why don't we go down before dinner to take a look?" I suggested.

And that's what we did.

Ivy insisted I pull out all the equipment and lay it on the gymnasium floor for her to inspect. She was so excited that I did it without complaint. The storage room contained two wooden longbows (that looked quite old) and a slightly more modern looking fibreglass recurve. There were also nearly two hundred arrows fletched and crested in a wide range of colours. Ivy sorted them into two piles. The good pile was significantly smaller than the bad, but it still had over fifty arrows in it. Ivy grinned up from the pile as though she'd discovered treasure. Then she inspected the bows.

"This one is sound," she said setting down a longbow. "This is cracked and will break on the first draw."

Ivy set the second longbow on the pile of broken arrows. She picked up the shorter recurve and tapped along its length with one finger. Then she sniffed it. I didn't know what she hoped to smell.

"What species of wood is this?" she asked.

"It's fibreglass," I said. "Not wood."

Her expression told me that fibreglass was another thing that hadn't made it to her home world. I have an endless fascination with how things are made, and I knew about fibreglass.

"It's long strands of spun glass glued together. It's easier to mass-produce those bows, and they're more durable."

"Interesting," Ivy said. "I shall try it, but there are no strings. I'll ask the mistress of the house if she has sinew or flax I can use to make new ones."

Sinew?

"I can order you bowstrings online," I said. "Or if you _want_ to make them, I'm sure I can get you the raw materials. I think there's special string for bows."

"I wish to make them myself. Please order me the special string, and if possible, beeswax."

"OK, we'd better go up to dinner before we get in trouble with Gran."

***

After some Googling, later that night, followed by a half hour on eBay, and I had a roll of Dacron bowstring and a small block of beeswax ordered. I paid extra for fast delivery since Ivy was excited to get started. At dinner she'd talked more than at any meal so far. Mr. Ryan (unsurprisingly) knew a lot about archery, and Gran said there was an old target in the carriage house. She voluntold me to find it and set it up for Ivy out back, but I didn't make a fuss; I'd have done it anyway.

Overnight shipping brought the bowstring-making supplies the next day. Ivy was remarkably grateful, as if Christmas had come early. I suspected few girls would get so excited over string and beeswax. The target stood behind the cars in the carriage house and was the round woven kind on a tripod. Picture every Robin Hood movie, and you get the idea. A cardboard tube full of gold, blue, and red paper targets sat on a shelf above it. Half of them had survived the mice. Like most of Gran's house, the target was old and dusty, but serviceable. I dragged it to the back of the yard and faced it away from the forest. Since the night of the eyes, it was hard not to imagine being watched from the darkness under the trees, and the forest around Gran's yard is so thick you can only see in for a few feet in most places. Even if I'd had the time (which I didn't) exploring had lost much of its appeal.

The next morning dawned sunny and beautiful. I was excited because the promised sparring with Mr. Ryan was set to begin. He showed me how to put on the kendo armour, and we went out back armed with the bamboo swords. He said it was too fine a day to be indoors and I couldn't have agreed more.

After our usual warm up, we got right to the sparring. Mr. Ryan put no stock in unnecessary formality. He believed in what _worked_. We squared off for the first time under the bright morning sunshine with birdsong in our ears. It was glorious... for three seconds. Then I saw the blue sky through the grill of my helmet.

"Up you get," Mr. Ryan said. "We aren't here to nap."

I pushed myself to my feet, ready to try again.

"Remember the forms you've been practising," Mr. Ryan said helpfully. Less helpfully he added, "Unless they aren't appropriate; then do what feels right. Keep your sword in the ready position."

I brought the tip of my bamboo sword back up. Mr. Ryan gave no warning, attacking me again. Before I knew it, the sun was in my eyes, and Mr. Ryan's foot was behind my heel. With a firm shove of his sword against mine, I lay flat on my back again. The whole morning followed that general trend. Mr. Ryan gave me permission to go all-out, and do whatever I could to hit him. I didn't come close. He also interspersed the sparring with tidbits of wisdom, hammered home with his sword. Helpful things such as, "There are two kinds of people on the field after a battle, the victorious and the dead." and "Study the enemy and the ground, then decide if you should fight." The only thing he said that stuck was, "Keep your bloody sword up!" He said that a lot, but as the morning wore on, it got harder and harder to do.

"That's it for this morning," he finally said. "You need to build up more stamina."

"OK," I said. I was laid out flat on my back, enjoying another view of the sky.

I sat up and pulled off my sweaty, and now stinky, helmet, tossing it to the grass beside me. That's when I realised Ivy was out back with us. Somewhere in the instruction, Mr. Ryan had mentioned remaining aware of my surroundings. That's easier said than done. Ivy sent arrow after arrow to the target, while I peeled off my armour, piece by piece, dropping it where I stood. Once I'd made it down to t-shirt and shorts, I went to watch her shoot.

I sat quietly behind her, not wanting to throw off her concentration. Ivy hadn't exaggerated about being good with a bow. She could have kicked Robin Hood's butt, and held her own with Legolas, on any day of the week. Ivy shot from twice as far as we'd done at summer camp and put every arrow in the gold. That became more impressive when I realised she was intentionally spacing them an inch apart. A few arrows might have been coincidence, but there was nothing random in her pattern. Only when the last arrow quivered an inch from its neighbours, did she set her longbow in the grass.

"You're amazing," I said.

Ivy jumped.

"Jack, you startled me."

I pushed myself to my feet.

"Were you up late making a bowstring?" I asked. She'd obviously finished one.

"No. It didn't take long. I have made many."

I picked up the bow and examined her handiwork. The string looked different from the ones on the bows at summer camp. Ivy's bowstring was a complex braid with no obvious beginning or end, and the loops were seamlessly part of the greater pattern.

"This looks well made," I said. The pattern looked more complicated the longer I examined it.

"It's no great feat," Ivy said, "Anyone could have made it."

She walked off toward the target, and I had a try at drawing the bow. The draw weight was heavier than I'd have guessed after watching Ivy shoot. Then I followed her to the target and saw that her arrow spacing was perfect. I have an excellent eye for detail and measurement (if I do say so myself) and I'd have bet my life that a ruler would have shown Ivy's placement to be flawless.

"I bet you could split an arrow like Robin Hood," I said.

Ivy stopped pulling arrows free and gave me a questioning look.

"Why would one wish to _split_ arrows? Making arrows is tedious."

I had no answer better than, "Because it's cool."

***

Usually, I sleep like the dead. I'd always set two alarm clocks for school and sometimes _that_ wasn't enough to wake me. That night, I must have woken ten times. A nightmare kept ripping me from sleep in a cold sweat. I couldn't remember what it was about, but it involved howling, snarling, and glowing red eyes. A few times, I was sure I still heard the noises after waking. You can laugh if you want, but I missed the cat. I hadn't given it much thought over the past weeks, but Gran's quiet black cat had made me feel inexplicably safe. Yes, I knew it was just a cat—I didn't say it made sense. Those dreams felt incredibly real, and that night was anything but restful.

I awoke early the next morning and couldn't fall back asleep. After an hour of lying in bed, I decided to just get up. Breakfast was still hours away and nobody else would be awake. The sun barely crested the horizon, the sky was clear, and the last stars of night were rapidly fading.

After dressing for my post-breakfast run and workout, I went downstairs and out back to enjoy the crisp morning air. From the patio doors, I saw something at the base of Ivy's archery target. I couldn't tell what it was until I'd walked most of the way across the dewy lawn. Even when I got close, my brain refused to accept what my eyes saw.

Scattered around the legs of the target, lay the remains of assorted woodland creatures. There was a racoon, missing its head and one hind leg, _just_ the head of a red fox, and three horribly mangled rabbits. A dozen small birds and three partial squirrels completed the grizzly collection. It looked as though someone had tossed a mile of interstate roadkill at the target.

I stared down at the little bodies for few minutes before Ms. Mopat arrived. She didn't make a sound, and as usual, didn't say a word. When she walked past me to the target, I almost jumped out of my skin. She carried an empty burlap sack, and without as much as an acknowledging nod, she gathered the bits and pieces of bird and animal, filling the sack. Ms. Mopat wasn't squeamish—she also had no gloves. As her fingers sank into the gooey insides of a rabbit, I desperately hoped she washed her hands before preparing meals.

"Do you think Gran's cat brought these here?" I asked. Cats sometimes bring home dead birds they've caught for their masters, but a _fox_ and a _raccoon?_

Ms. Mopat only shook her head before stuffing in the last squirrel and going back to the house. Weird didn't seem like a strong enough word. I couldn't decide if the strangest thing I'd seen that morning was the dismembered animals, or Ms. Mopat. One thing I did know... _I wasn't hungry for breakfast anymore._

Chapter 12 – New Doors

The clear weather continued into the afternoon and there was no noticeable wind. As soon as we finished gardening, I ran back up to my room for the plane. It was delicate, so I returned more carefully cradling plane, fuel, and remote control. Then I wasted no time gassing it up and doing the miniature pre-flight check. Everything was good to go, and Ivy looked almost as excited as I felt. I'd watched a bunch of YouTube videos and practised flying with flight simulators on my computer.

The plane sped across the short grass, and I succeeded brilliantly with the takeoff portion of the flight. I even circled Gran's huge yard twice, gaining altitude. Things went downhill from there. My plane just went down. There must have been more wind higher up because the plane suddenly blew sideways out over the forest's closest treetops. A moment of panic, followed by overcompensation on the controls, caused the plane flip upside-down and shoot straight away from me into the woods. It went down far enough away that I didn't hear the crash, but I didn't need to.

"I'm sorry, Jack." Ivy said.

"The plane can't be far," I said. "I'm going to get it."

"You will not," Gran said behind me.

She must have snuck up while I was watching the plane.

"It'll be close," I said. "Two minutes away, tops."

" _You will not_."

Gran had spoken.

I stared at her for a minute before backing down. It wasn't worth the confrontation. Plus I'd seen plenty of videos of model planes crashing and knew mine was almost certainly damaged beyond repair. I wasn't sure what I'd do with the expensive remote control since I had no plans to build any more planes.

After all... the one I'd made—worked.

***

Weeks of glorious routine and perfect weather followed. I can honestly say they were the happiest of my life. Most of the prior fourteen years had been lonely, and even at school with classmates around me, I'd felt alone. Were Mr. Ryan and Ivy my friends? I wasn't sure, and I didn't want to ask. Jinxing things seemed like a real possibility, so I continued my lifelong policy of going with the flow. With well over half of my summer holidays behind me, I determined to make the most of what remained.

All things come to an end, and the perfect weather was no exception. Ivy and I were in the middle of another afternoon movie when thunder boomed. It sounded close, and the windows rattled. A second later, the film ended prematurely as the power went out. I pulled the curtains back to discover the day had turned grey, and the sky was as dark as late evening. Lighting flashed in the distance, followed by more thunder, and heavy rain came shortly thereafter.

"Don't worry," I said. "I've got a flashlight."

"I don't think we need it," Ivy said. "There's still more than enough light by which to see."

"Near the windows, maybe. What about in the basement and the attic?"

"Why would we go to either place?"

I shined the flashlight under my chin to up-light my face and make it look terrifying.

"To explore the haunted mansion," I said with a cheesy Dracula accent. "Unless, little girl... you are too afraid. Mo ha ha."

To be honest, Ivy's expression spoke more of me being a moron than fear. I'd wanted to explore the rest of Gran's house, but my highly scheduled days and general exhaustion had delayed the epic adventure. Without power, computer lessons were cancelled, and it was too wet to go outside, meaning... the time had finally come to unveil the mysteries of Castle Gran!

"I may take a nap," Ivy said.

"What kind of trusty side-kick are you? Would Robin nap when Batman's out fighting crime?" Ivy hadn't liked Batman, so I changed tack. "Would Sam abandon Frodo on a quest?"

Ivy rolled her eyes and stood.

"If anything," she said, "you're _my_ side-kick. Though, I think of you as more of a lackey. Clearly, you want to explore the house, but are too frightened to go alone. I will accompany you to assuage your timidity." Ivy walked to my door as she spoke and turned back when she opened it. "Don't try to use this as an excuse to hold my hand in the dark corners of the house."

"You wish," I said, clicking off the flashlight. We didn't need it yet.

"Where shall we begin?"

"I say basement, we've already seen at least half—the power could come back on at any moment and drive away the ghosts!"

Gran's basement had so far offered up: an old-fashioned kitchen (filled with assorted junk), the gymnasium, and most impressively (and disgustingly) a pool. Admittedly, the pool had no water, but still. By my estimation, a good third of the square footage remained unaccounted for. Who knew what incredible mysteries or treasures awaited us? The flashlight became essential at the foot of the basement stairs. The long, windowless hallway was pitch-black.

"I bet you're wishing I _would_ hold your hand now," I said. "It's too late to beg. Come along, Dr. Watson."

I went left at the foot of the stairs and headed into uncharted territory. The first door we reached was on the left-hand side and mirrored the position of the gymnasium door at the other end of the hallway. Fearlessly, I turned the handle, pushing in to discover... the house's mechanical room, complete with an ancient looking boiler.

Ivy was a good deal more impressed than me. The boiler was a big hulking metal monstrosity with pipes running in and out of it. Gauges, tanks, and parts I didn't recognise made it look like something from the age of steam. A state-of-the-art, computer-controlled furnace it was not. The grated door on the front grinned at us with dull metal teeth, waiting for its next mouthful of fuel.

"What is that thing?" Ivy asked.

"That's where Gran disposes of the bodies."

A sharp little elbow dug into my side.

"The house's boiler," I corrected myself. "It heats the water that runs through those pipes, and they go to the radiators. I'd guess you feed it coal or wood, through that door. I've never seen anything like this in real life. It must be a million years old. I'm surprised nobody upgraded to oil or gas. I wonder who feeds this thing all winter?"

"The Mopat," Ivy said.

" _Ms. Mopat?_ How would you know?"

"The Mopat is your grandmother's servant. Who else would feed this?"

I couldn't picture my grandmother shovelling coal, or carrying firewood. The mechanical room was as large as the gymnasium. In addition to the boiler it held far newer-looking motors, pumps, and a filter system for the well water. All of that only took up a third of the room. The rest contained a workshop. Benches and cupboards ran down two of the walls, below pegboards, containing hundreds of tools. I didn't know what half of them might be for, but it was almost as exciting as seeing the smithy for the first time. I felt sure—given enough time—that with those tools a person could make _anything_. The place had a very dated quality, and although there were electric tools, drills and saws and such, they looked like Edison might have invented them (or stolen them from some other guy). I couldn't get a proper look around with the flashlight, but determined to return later when the lights were working.

"Shall we move on?" I asked Ivy.

"If you like."

I led my assistant back out into the hallway. No doorway stood opposite the mechanical room's door, but I wasn't surprised. The kitchen had looked as though it extended to the end of the house. What surprised me was a door at the very end of the hallway. By my mental reckoning, the doorway was set into the foundation wall. The door itself was fancy compared to the other basement doors; or the ones upstairs and was crafted from one solid piece of walnut. A stylised tree was carved into the face of the door. I didn't recognise the species; seven round fruits hung from its branches, and two birds sat near the top. _Ravens?_ Based on the depth of the carving, the door was _thick_ with a heavy wrought iron handle begging to be pulled. I pulled harder and harder until I was giving it everything and had one foot on the frame. The door didn't budge.

"It's stuck," I said.

"Perhaps, you're not meant to go in there," Ivy said.

I wasn't listening.

"Given its location, there must be a cold cellar, or this is where stairs to outside used to be. They wouldn't have brought supplies and coal through the house, and there's nothing outside, meaning that if there were stairs, they're filled-in. I'll ask Gran later. That's the basement... to the attic!"

My plans were immediately foiled by the return of electricity. _At least I can have a better look at the workshop_ , I thought, but Ivy interrupted my return to the mechanical room.

"What do you think you're doing?" she asked. "We're in the middle of a movie!"

Another day, I guess...

***

Dinnertime brought a new boarder. I should tell you that most guests at Gran's used her house like a hotel, staying only a single night. They'd be there for dinner and gone before breakfast the next day. Usually, I didn't learn their names, or quickly forgot them if I did. There were men and women both and occasionally a couple. Something was off about most of them, but I didn't give it much thought, figuring a person would have to be a little quirky to travel the extra distance to stay at Gran's instead of getting a room at a chain motel nearer the highway. The food was good, and Gran's house was comfortable, but it wasn't what you'd call exclusive, luxurious, or even quaint.

As I said, there was usually something weird about each of Gran's guests. Many were just eccentric like Mr. Smith, but others were full-on weirdos. The woman at the table, with my usual dinner companions, looked to be in the second category. I try not to judge people based on appearances, but the lady sitting between Ivy and Mr. Ryan looked as if she'd stepped out of a booth at a carnival sideshow. The strange woman looked like every cheesy fortune-telling gypsy lady you've ever seen in a bad TV show or b-movie. She looked as old as my grandmother and was dressed in the scarves and bangles that any sideshow fortune-teller requires. Gran introduced me to Madame Gawina, and I was unsurprised when she spoke with a thick eastern-European accent.

"It is nice to make your acquaintance, young Jack," she said.

"Nice to meet you too," I said.

"Such a handsome young man."

I didn't know what to say to that. I'm not particularly good looking. I'm not ugly either (and I'm not complaining), but I have a face that's both inoffensive and unmemorable. Not a lot of compliments had come my way, but Madame Gawina did have a hazy whitish coating over her eyes. Possibly, she had diminished vision.

"Thanks," I said, feeling uncomfortable.

Mr. Ryan was smiling. I knew him well enough to know he was enjoying my discomfort. Ivy looked angry, and I moved us onto a new topic.

"Gran, what's behind the door with the tree in the basement?" I asked. "The one at the end of the hallway."

"Why do you ask?" Gran gave me her look that feels as though she can tell the colour (and cleanness) of your underwear at a glance.

"Just curious. The door is stuck shut."

"Leave that door alone," Gran said. "There's an old root cellar behind that was never properly shored up and isn't safe. The frame settled crooked, and the door is wedged. Leave it be."

Gran's tone said the topic had been fully discussed and was now permanently closed. Much like the door apparently.

"Who used the big workshop in the boiler room?" I asked.

"You've been exploring?" Gran asked.

"We were looking around when the power went out. Not much else to do with it raining."

"Many people have used it over the years," Gran said. "Back when the manor was built, most things were fixed by the staff, here on site. Countless hobbies have been practised down there during the last century. Your mother tried her hand at stained glass work as a girl, but she tired of it quickly. A lady who made jewellery stayed here, twenty years back, and left her equipment behind when she passed. I believe there's even a full set of watchmakers tools and goodness knows what else."

My hands itched to dig through the workshop. I was good at all the subjects at school, but the only one I genuinely enjoyed was art class. Moving around so much made it a challenge, but I never tired of making something new. In the past, every time I moved, I threw away or left behind my projects.

When summer ended, and I was alone with Gran in the house, I planned to claim the workshop as my own. Who knew what I might make! At present, my time was spoken for, so I pushed those plans to the back of my mind.

Chapter 13 – Misfortunes

On my way to a much-needed shower, after sword practice with Mr. Ryan, I was hailed from the little sitting room where Gran took her tea.

"Young Jack," Madame Gawina called.

She sounded strange, and even as I turned to look, I realised her voice was smoother and her accent had vanished. That was nothing compared to her physical transformation. The woman on the dusty-rose sofa was unquestionably Madame Gawina, but she looked so different that she could have been the daughter (or possibly the granddaughter) of the woman I'd met earlier.

The hair poking out of her silk scarf at dinner had been steel grey. Now thick, wavy black hair cascaded down her back and over her shoulders. Her wrinkles were mostly gone too, and I re-evaluated her age at thirty-something. A simple cotton dressing gown replaced the scarves and bangles, and an open book rested in her lap. I found I could only stare. Her bright blue eyes twinkled—no trace of the whitish haze remained.

"It's rude to stare," she said.

She smiled, and that smile made funny things happen inside me.

"Sorry," I said. "You look..."

Madame Gawina laughed.

"I've changed out of my work clothes. Now and then, it's nice to let your hair down."

"What do you do for work?"

"I am Madame Gawina, teller of fortunes and conduit to the next world," she said with the accent and huskier voice from earlier. "I came here directly from a client's, and I didn't have time to change before dinner."

"You really _are_ a fortune-teller?" I blurted out. _What were the odds?_

"Do you believe in destiny, young Jack?" She smiled again as she said it, and it made me laugh.

"No," I said, returning her smile. She seemed nice and prettier by the minute.

"I see. Would you like me to tell you your fortune, anyway?"

I didn't believe in astrology, palm reading, or any of that junk, but she was very pretty.

"OK."

"Come and sit next to me." Madame Gawina patted the cushion beside her on the little sofa.

I only made it halfway across the room before Ivy's voice stopped me dead in my tracks.

"What are you doing?" Ivy asked from the doorway.

I looked back, feeling guilty, which was strange because I'd done nothing wrong.

"I was about to have my fortune told," I said. "For fun."

"Perhaps, the young lady wishes... to have her own fortune told?" Madame Gawina queried softly.

Ivy's face did a twitchy thing.

"I already _know_ what my future holds," she said.

"People always _think_ _they know_ ," Madame Gawina said. "But often, their fate resembles nothing of what they've imagined."

"It's not real," I said. "Why don't you have a try, just for fun?"

"You are an idiot, Jack." Ivy didn't look away from Madame Gawina as she said it.

"Where's the harm child?" Madame Gawina asked her. "If your future is set in stone, there's no reason not to let me see."

Ivy looked back and forth between us before moving to sit on the cushion next to Madame Gawina. Gently, the older woman took Ivy's little face in her hands and stared into her eyes.

"Aren't you going to read her palm?" I asked.

"The wrinkles on a person's hands mean nothing," Madame Gawina replied distantly.

For a minute or two, nothing happened, except for silent staring into eyes. I grew bored, and I wondered how Madame Gawina made a living with so little in the way of proper showmanship. Then she spoke, and the creepy/mystical voice she used was pure carnival gold.

"Your destiny is clouded," she said. "Two great shadows wait along your path. One... will stand beside you."

She went silent again. _That was super vague_ , I thought. But fortune-tellers and psychics specialised in vague answers and generalities.

"Is there more?" Ivy asked.

"Are you sure you want to hear it?"

"Yes," Ivy said. She was really getting into it.

Madame Gawina continued.

"That which you fear most will come to pass, but you will find hope and joy in the darkness. Where your path will end... is clouded from my Sight."

"Clouded by what?" Ivy asked.

"By the shadows along your path. They will tear the Weave and shake the Tree to its roots. You will be swept up in a storm of their making. I'm sorry I can't tell you more. Perhaps, elsewhere..." Madame Gawina took her now shaking hands from Ivy's face.

It _was_ totally vague, but I thought it made for a good show. Ivy looked to be taking her fortune seriously, and I figured a girl who talked to plants might believe in that stuff.

"Thank you," Ivy said.

"It wasn't very useful information," Madame Gawina told her, shaking her head. "I'm limited here."

She looked like she would say more, but after glancing over at me, decided against it. Ivy got up from the sofa and moved to sit on the far side of the coffee table.

"Well, Jack? Shall we see if _your_ future is any clearer?" Madame Gawina asked.

"I'm kind of sweaty," I said.

Most of my sweat had dried, but I was still stinky from practising.

She patted the cushion Ivy had just vacated, "I'm sure I'll survive."

"Why not?"

I sat next to her, and she grabbed my face. Her hands were soft and warm, and she smelled like roses. I could feel my face flush when she brought it close to her own.

"No need to be nervous," she said. "I won't bite."

Then she looked into my eyes as she'd done with Ivy. I looked into her pale blue eyes too, but I just saw eyes. After a few seconds, those eyes went wide, and she pulled her hands from my face as though my cheeks had burned them. She also backed away from me as much as the sofa would allow.

"Is something wrong?" I asked, wondering if it was another part of the show.

"I've overstepped," she said. "Please forgive me." Madame Gawina was looking at her hands, now in her lap, as if she was afraid to make eye contact again.

"Yes, you have," Gran said from the doorway. "I have rules regarding _business_ being conducted under my roof."

"I meant no harm," Madame Gawina said.

"What's going on?" Mr. Ryan asked.

He'd obviously been walking down the hallway, most likely on his way to the library. Unlike me, he was shower-fresh, and his short hair still looked damp.

"Nothing of consequence," Gran said. "Madame Gawina was just about to wish us a good night."

The fortune-teller popped up from the sofa, looking relieved, and made for the door.

"Good night everyone," she said.

She didn't look at me on the way by, but she glanced up at Mr. Ryan as he stepped aside to let her pass. Madame Gawina stopped, frozen, staring at Mr. Ryan's face until Gran coughed loudly. When she looked at my grandmother, Madame Gawina's face was a bloodless mask of pure terror. I thought she might vomit. Gran stared coldly back at her.

"I will speak of it to no one," Madame Gawina told Gran in a whisper. She sounded desperate.

"You will not," Gran agreed.

Ms. Mopat joined the party at that very moment.

"My servant will escort you to your room," Gran said.

"That, that... isn't necessary," Madame Gawina said.

"I will decide what is necessary under my roof," Gran told her.

_Not the best customer service_. But _I_ wasn't going to correct Gran.

"As you say." Madame Gawina looked unsteady on her feet as Ms. Mopat helped her with a firm grip under one arm.

"Can I help?" Mr. Ryan asked.

He looked concerned and confused, but who wasn't?

"No, I'll be fine," Madame Gawina said. She kept her eyes on the floor as though afraid to look up again.

_Weird_ , I thought, _she suddenly turned shy_.

After Madame Gawina and Ms. Mopat left, I opened my mouth to ask Gran what the big deal was. Before I had the chance, she spoke to me instead.

" _Jack_ , are you sitting on my antique sofa, filthy and covered in sweat?"

I was, and she looked super pissed.

"Sorry Gran." I jumped up from my seat as Madame Gawina had done.

" _Go shower._ "

Gran's order left no room for continued discussion.

Madame Gawina left before breakfast, but that was the norm for many of Gran's guests. Me, I was very busy and forgot about the incident—until the summer ended.

Chapter 14 – Questions and Answers

After mid-summer, things were generally good between Ivy and me. The more time I spent with her, the more certain I became that her original miserableness had been a self-defence mechanism, and though she was no less weird, I'd noticed that sometimes she could be remarkably thoughtful and kind. Ivy had a particular soft spot for all of nature's little creatures—even the ugly ones. One afternoon, I was tackled to the ground by a little blond ball of fury. I'd been standing on one leg, with my foot poised to squish a nasty, hairy caterpillar in the garden. The next thing I knew, I was flat on my back in the dirt with Ivy on top of me.

"What's the idea?" I demanded.

"What were you thinking?" Ivy shot back.

"I was just going to squish a caterpillar," I said. "They eat the plants in the garden."

Ivy climbed off and picked up the hairy little creature.

"This has as much right to live as you do," she said.

"I don't think it's a kind that'll turn into a beautiful butterfly or anything. That grub will just become an ugly little mo–"

Ivy's angry expression cut short the rest of what I was going to say. She looked as mad as I'd ever seen her.

"Is the moth worth less than the butterfly because it's less beautiful?" she asked.

Ivy _liked_ butterflies. They were always landing on her fingers, and often, one would be in her hair when we were out in the garden. The only bugs Ivy liked better were bees. She thought bees rocked. I'm not kidding.

"I thought you _liked_ butterflies."

"You're an idiot."

Ivy carried the caterpillar to the far side of the lawn and set it down in the grass. She came back and started working again, ignoring me completely. I still wasn't a hundred percent sure what I'd done wrong, but it was nicer when Ivy wasn't mad at me, so I apologised anyway.

"Sorry," I said. _There, problem solved_.

"Why are you sorry?"

"Because... I upset you?"

"You're an idiot," Ivy said again, but she didn't sound angry.

Time to change the topic.

"Where exactly are you from?" I asked.

Ivy looked up from the weed she was pulling.

"I promised I wouldn't speak of that," she said.

What?

"Promised who?"

"Your grandmother," Ivy said.

"Why? Why would Gran care if you told me about yourself? That makes no sense."

"She didn't give me her reasons. Perhaps, you should ask her."

Asking my grandmother a question that mattered was like asking my parents. I might as well ask a brick wall for all the information I'd get.

"So you aren't allowed to say anything about yourself?"

"Not in specifics," Ivy said.

Wow, that was messed up.

"How about generalities?" I asked.

Ivy considered a moment.

"If it doesn't touch on my promise, I can answer."

"OK, I guess. Do you have brothers or sisters?"

"I'm an only child. My parents were so disappointed in me; they decided they would have no others."

"I'm sure that isn't true."

"They told me so." Ivy pulled another weed. The matter-of-fact way she said it made me believe her.

"How could they say something like that to you? That's terrible."

"My family isn't like your television programs and movies."

"Mine either. My parents don't even talk to me if they can help it. In the years I stayed with my mom, I never saw or heard from my dad, and vice versa. Neither has even emailed me since I got here."

"My parents sent me away as well."

"You mean here?"

"No, I'm here at the request of your grandmother," Ivy said. Then she added more softly, "I don't know why."

"Then who were you staying with before?"

"I can't say without breaking my promise."

"Were they nice to you?" I suspected I already knew the answer.

Ivy looked back at the ground before answering, "No."

"Maybe you could stay here," I suggested. "I'll ask Gran. It's not as if she doesn't have the room."

"That's... not possible."

"I could try. You could go to regular school with me in the fall. I know a lot of stuff here is new to you, but I'd help."

Ivy stared at me, hard.

"What?" I asked.

"You'd do that?"

"Yeah, it's nice having someone around to talk to and hang out with. Even if you are crazy." I bent to pull a weed so she wouldn't see my face.

"Thank you, Jack. I must leave when summer ends, but I thank you for your kindness."

She sounded as if she might be crying. When I looked up again, Ivy had turned away, and her shoulders shook with silent sobbing. I continued weeding, pretending not to notice.

***

Ivy wasn't around the next morning, and Mr. Ryan and I were enjoying a sweaty session of grappling on the wrestling mat in the gym. Both of us were in better shape than we'd been in at the start of the summer, making a certain amount of conversation possible. I hadn't learned much about Ivy, but I was sure even Gran couldn't censor Mr. Ryan. I'd just tapped out of an arm bar, and we were getting back to our feet, when I decided to have my first go at really getting to know him.

If you're wondering how it took me till past the middle of summer to ask my first personal questions, you have to understand my upbringing. My parents _never_ answered my questions. Not about anything important. Years earlier I'd accepted it as normal and had given up trying. I knew it _wasn't_ normal, but there wasn't much I could do about it.

"You ever been married?" I asked. I'm not sure why I started with that.

Mr. Ryan gave me a quizzical look.

"Thoughts of love on your mind?"

"What?"

"Ivy's a cute girl."

"Looney Toons too," I said. "You're a funny guy. I was just curious."

"Never been married, Jack. I came close a few times. I guess I haven't met the right woman." Mr. Ryan smiled, but I'd swear there was a hint of sadness in it. "What's with the sudden interest?"

I shrugged.

"What _exactly_ do you do for a living?" I asked.

I received an appraising look.

"If we're going to play twenty questions, you can put on the gloves and work the heavy bag while we talk."

I grabbed the training gloves, and Mr. Ryan steadied the bag for me. After I'd thrown a few jabs, he answered my question.

"I assess, design, and test the security for corporations and individuals. Everything from physical security to safeguarding sensitive data. I'm basically a one man show."

"How do you get a job like that?"

"I fell into it. I retired from the army a few years back, and a buddy of mine, who was doing personal protection, asked me to cover for him while he dealt with family issues. That led to another job and referrals, and before I knew it, I had a second career. I'm too young to fully retire."

"Where do you live?" Most people didn't stay at a rooming house in the middle of nowhere on a whim.

"As of this moment... right here."

"I mean normally. Where's your house?"

"I don't have one. I kept an apartment for two years after I left the army, but my consulting business takes me all over. When I added up the time I spent at the apartment, it made little sense to keep the place. I've got a ten by ten storage unit for my extra junk, but mainly, I live out of my truck. A drifter, you might say. I go where the next job leads. I've gotten to see plenty of new places along the way." Mr. Ryan patted his now smaller belly. "The only real downsides are that I fell into eating a lot of fast food, and sometimes it's hard to tell one hotel room from another. Keep your left hand up. That's what's nice about your grandmother's place. It's unique."

"You can say that again. What did you do in the army?"

"I started out as an infantry officer, and then I moved into a more _specialised_ unit after a few years. Giving you details would land my butt in jail. Think jumping out of planes and rappelling from helicopters, and I'm sure your imagination can fill in the rest."

If someone else had told me that, I'd have been sceptical, but I could totally see Mr. Ryan kicking down the front door of a terrorist compound.

"Do you have any family?" I asked.

"Just my folks, and they passed twenty years back in a car accident. I was out of the country at the time. No brothers or sisters. Some cousins I never see. The guys in my unit were my family for the last twenty years, and I visit them when a job brings me nearby."

"You're like Kwai Chang Caine," I said.

Mr. Ryan laughed.

"If you're going to reference bad old television, _The Littlest Hobo_ might be more accurate."

"I've never seen that. Is it like _Kung Fu_?"

"Not really, you can Google it later. Get your hands up higher."

Mr. Ryan _answered_ questions. It was a novel experience for me, so I asked his opinion about something that'd been bothering me.

"What do you think's wrong with Ivy?"

"How do you mean? You two appear to be getting along well."

" _Mentally._ " I wondered if he was messing with me. "She thinks she's an actual princess and that you're a knight. How can you live fourteen years and not know what a movie is? Let alone never see one!"

Mr. Ryan was slow to answer.

"I don't know anything for certain," he said. "And your grandmother refuses to talk about Ivy, but I believe she comes from an abusive environment. She shows signs of having been abused, and the things she doesn't know speak to extreme isolation."

I hadn't considered any of that.

"Do you think I should do something?" I asked. I couldn't imagine what that might be.

"Be her friend. When she trusts you, she may open up."

Now, I felt extra bad about fighting with Ivy at the start of the summer. I hit the bag a few times and determined to be nicer to her from then on.

Chapter 15 – Friendship Lost

In the days following my talk with Mr. Ryan, I did my best to be nicer to Ivy. That wasn't always successful because we both had strong, and, if I'm being honest, somewhat abrasive personalities. Two hotheads jammed together all the time were bound to have arguments, but I did _try_ to keep my cool. Unless I imagined it—Ivy did the same.

The garden grew far beyond what I'd have believed possible, and we were already harvesting and eating the vegetables at mealtimes. One Tuesday evening I discovered that my family doctor would be staying at Gran's for the last weeks of summer holidays. I'd forgotten my annual physical until I saw him sitting at the dinner table.

Dr. Davis was so old and wrinkled, he made raisins and elephants look smooth by comparison. For my entire life, Dr. Davis had been my physician, and it didn't matter if I stayed the year at my mother's or my father's. When I got sick, Dr. Davis showed up, old-fashioned black bag in hand. I was ten or eleven before I realised most doctors _don't_ make house calls, and none travel cross-country to do so.

I chocked it up to being wealthy.

Every summer, for as long as I could remember, Dr. Davis had showed up out of the blue to give me a detailed physical examination. Then, minus a bout of illness, I wouldn't see him again until the next summer. Since I was the last person to arrive for dinner, Ivy, Mr. Ryan, Gran, and Dr. Davis had started without me.

"Hello, Jack," Dr. Davis said. His raspy voice sounded like he'd just risen from the crypt, but he was nice enough.

"Hi," I said, sitting between Ivy and Mr. Ryan. "Annual physical time again?"

"I've become predictable," Dr. Davis said with a chuckle.

"Isn't it unusual for a healthy boy Jack's age to get a physical every year?" Mr. Ryan asked.

I'd asked my mother the same question last year and received no answer.

"It's required by his father's... insurance policy," Dr. Davis said. "To keep the premium down."

_Why couldn't my mother tell me that?_ I wondered.

"I see," Mr. Ryan said.

A little small talk about the weather, and how tasty the fresh vegetables were, followed. Ivy gave the good doctor more than a few suspicious looks over the course of the meal. Dr. Davis informed me he was taking a short vacation at Gran's and would work in my examination sometime over the following weeks. The physical was never a big deal, and I soon moved on to thinking about other things.

***

Ivy had been hanging out in my room every night after my evening practice with Mr. Ryan, for weeks. I wasn't as tired anymore, and I suspected the movies remained her primary motivation, but it was still nice. That evening, after I showered, I asked Ms. Mopat if there was any popcorn in the house. She nodded, and made me two huge, butter-covered bowls with an ancient-looking air popper. I added bottles of iced tea from the fridge and headed up to my room. Ivy met me on the stairs, and I handed her half of the food. As soon as my bedroom door clicked shut, she set the bowl on her chair.

"Who's this Dr. Davis?" she asked, looking concerned.

"He's just my family doctor." I wondered what had her so worked up. It _was_ Ivy... she might not know about doctors.

"There's something about him I don't trust."

"What?" I sat in my chair and crammed a huge handful of popcorn in my mouth.

"I don't know. He's not what he seems. Like Mr. Ryan, but in a different way."

"He's always been nice enough," I said, losing a few kernels, "The way he comes running when I get a cold... my dad must pay the guy a fortune."

"Be careful around him, Jack."

What do you say to that?

"OK."

Ivy picked up her bowl and sat in her chair.

"I must go out again tonight," she said. "I promised to tell you, but there's no need for you to accompany me. It will be perfectly safe."

I didn't want to stay up until the small hours, but I'd be too worried to sleep if I didn't go with her.

"What time?" I asked.

"Midnight."

Why doesn't anything ever happen at ten?

We watched the movie after that, but Ivy seemed preoccupied and didn't enjoy herself. I promised to meet her at the patio door at midnight. I'd never had any friends before, and I wondered if it was always such a pain in the butt.

Midnight was only an hour and twenty minutes away, leaving no time for Jack to nap, so I gathered my flashlight, and looked around for a suitable weapon. I hadn't given my offer to protect Ivy another thought since the first night, believing her late-night sojourn to be a crazy onetime outing. I should have known better. The only actual weapon I knew of in Gran's house was the sword in the library. Most likely nothing would happen, except me losing hours of sleep, but I remembered the eyes in the forest and how they'd made me feel.

After scooping a step stool from the kitchen, I took the heavy blade down just before midnight. Thankfully, Gran wasn't around. I pulled the sword a few inches out of the scabbard to examine the blade. It gleamed shiny-silver and looked plenty sharp.

Ivy waited by the back door when I got there. Her eyes went wide when she saw the sword.

"Jack," she whispered. "Wouldn't the mistress of the house be angry at you for taking that?"

"Probably," I admitted, "but if you're right, and there's no danger, I'll put it back after with no one the wiser."

"We'll be safe on the property," she said.

I followed Ivy out. Thanks to a cloudy sky, it was far darker than the moonlit night had been. Even Ivy's white nighty was hard to see.

"So what are you going to do?" I asked.

"I will ask the garden to give more of its fruits, before it returns to slumber."

Ask a silly question.

"How long do you think that will take?"

"Less than an hour."

Ivy hummed and slowly walked the rows of the vegetable garden over and over. It got boring quickly, and I started scanning the forest for eyes. I didn't see any, so I moved further back in the yard. Animal eyes don't actually glow, they reflect, and there was no moon to give light.

I clicked on my flashlight—a powerful one that took six D-cell batteries. The beam of light shot to the back edge of the yard, and I swung it in an arc across the property. I swear in that first swing, a whole crapload of eyes looked back at me. When I moved the light more slowly a second time, I saw nothing but trees and bushes. I felt sure I hadn't imagined the eyes. With the library sword's scabbard in one hand and flashlight in the other, I kept sweeping the treeline until Ivy tapped me on the shoulder and informed me she'd finished.

***

The next morning, Mr. Ryan and I did our workout in the backyard. I couldn't resist glancing towards the back of the property.

"What are you looking for?" Mr. Ryan asked. "You've been checking the property line all morning."

"I thought I saw something in the woods last night," I said. "It was probably nothing."

"Why don't we check for tracks? You're not paying attention, anyway."

This was perfect. I was _a little_ nervous about going into the forest on my own, but with Mr. Ryan...

"OK," I said. "If you don't mind."

"Show me where you think you saw something."

I led Mr. Ryan to a spot where I'd seen eyes. The forest looked less scary in the daytime. Mr. Ryan examined the ground and looked back at me.

"There _are_ tracks," he said. "Right up to the grass. Quite a lot of them."

He squatted and poked the ground with a finger.

"Fresh too. These might be from last night."

"What kind are they?"

"You'll have to come closer to see," Mr. Ryan said.

That's when I realised I'd been hanging a fair way back from the edge of the property. Mortified at my unconscious cowardice, I came over to look. I knew little about animal tracks, but they looked like big dog prints.

"Dog?"

"Wolf," Mr. Ryan corrected me. "More than one, and quite large. See the different sizes."

I looked closer, and sure enough I could distinguish at least three distinct sets of prints.

"I wouldn't worry," Mr. Ryan said. "Wolves leave people alone. They're only monsters in stories and movies."

Mr. Ryan had been right about everything since we'd met, but I felt less confident in his assessment this time.

"Hey, what's that?" Mr. Ryan pointed into the forest.

He went further in to look and answered his own question. When he came back he carried the left wing from my model plane. It was crushed and chewed, but recognisable. A single decal was still intact and unmarred.

"An animal must have dragged this here," Mr. Ryan said, handing me the wing. "You lost this on the other side of the property didn't you?"

"Yeah."

We were a _long_ way from where the plane had gone down.

***

I had my physical a few days later. It was nothing exciting, just the usual listening to my heart, turning my head and coughing sorts of things. Dr. Davis pronounced me in good health and predicted I might have a growth spurt soon. My mother and father are both tall, so there wasn't likely any science involved. Outside of dinner, I never saw Dr. Davis around the house, but a lot of Gran's guests stuck to their rooms.

The same night as the physical, Ivy and I had a fight. She came up for our evening movie while I showered, which was no big deal since I always dressed in the bathroom after. Ivy had let herself into my room—also no big deal. Unfortunately, I'd left my current sketchbook sitting out on the writing desk.

I always had a sketchbook on the go. Sometimes, I did proper sketches of real things for art class at school. Other times, I drew fanciful stuff I hoped to build someday. They'd mostly consisted of forts and spaceships when I was younger. More recently, I'd added designs for swords I'd forge out in Gran's smithy. Most recently, I'd been drawing pictures of Ivy... lots of pictures of Ivy. When I opened the door, and I saw her flipping through my sketchbook, I lost it. Embarrassed, I overreacted, racing across the room and tearing the book from her hands.

"Jack, what are you doing?" Ivy looked shocked.

"You can't just go digging through peoples private things," I said.

"It was sitting out. I was only looking at your pictures while I waited."

Had she gotten to the ones at the end? I couldn't tell.

"Get out of my room!" I shouted.

The look of hurt on her face made me immediately regret it. Before I could take my words back—Ivy had fled in tears. I felt like the biggest jerk on the planet, but I didn't know how to fix things. Ivy stopped coming in the evenings and we didn't talk for the next week out in the garden or at meals.

With a few words, I'd lost my first friend.

Chapter 16 – Mended Fences

The week after my outburst was as miserable as the month before had been wonderful. I still did the martial arts with Mr. Ryan, but it didn't seem as fun anymore. All that had changed was talking to Ivy every day, and it surprised me how losing that one thing could so diminish the quality of my life. I also felt guilty over being such a jerk. Mr. Ryan probably noticed something was off with me right away, but he waited a week before asking about it.

"You and Ivy have a fight?"

We were putting away equipment in the gym. Rainy weather had returned, forcing us inside for the day.

"Yeah," I said. "I sort of yelled at her."

"How do you _sort of_ yell at someone?"

"OK, I yelled at her. She was going through my stuff."

Mr. Ryan set our bamboo swords on the rack and looked back at me with one eyebrow raised.

"You mean she was rifling through your drawers and digging through your closet? Ivy's a strange girl, but I've always found her to be flawlessly polite."

"Not exactly," I said.

Mr. Ryan didn't push for the details.

"So you got upset and said things you wish you hadn't?"

I nodded.

"And now you aren't sure how to fix things?"

Mr. Ryan was like a mind reader.

"Yeah."

"Did you try apologising?"

"No."

"Is it such a big deal that you're willing to end the summer without talking to her before she leaves?"

It wasn't, and hearing Mr. Ryan spell it out, I felt like even more of an idiot.

"Friendship is never a one way street," he said. "Sometimes, you have to give a little."

***

I went down to Ivy's room after dinner. Generally, I avoided the second floor altogether because my grandmother lived on it. Ivy had been to my room countless times, but this was the first time I'd gone to visit hers. I knocked on the door to no answer, and I turned to leave. I'll admit that I felt relief. Tomorrow would be soon enough. The door opened before I'd taken a step.

"Did you want something, Jack?" Ivy was dressed in her white cotton nighty, looking ready for bed.

"I wanted to talk to you." I held my sketchbook tight to my chest like a shield. I didn't flinch when Mr. Ryan hit me on the head with a wooden sword, but now, I was on the verge of bolting.

"You may come in, if you wish." Ivy backed into her room to let me in.

I took a moment to do a little visual snooping. In keeping with the rest of the house, Ivy's room was decorated in _old lady_ , and the room didn't look as though Ivy had added any personal touches to make it her own. It looked as though she'd never slept a night there and could walk out without leaving a trace of her existence. There wasn't as much as a single knickknack on the dresser.

"What did you wish to say?"

"I wanted to apologise for yelling at you." There—it was out. Admittedly, I hadn't looked up from the floor when I said it, but it was out.

"You have every right to your privacy. I overstepped and let myself believe you were my..."

She trailed off, and I looked up from my feet.

"Your what?" I asked.

"My friend," Ivy said. Now _she_ looked at the floor.

"I was. I mean, I am... if you want me to be. You're _technically_ my first friend. I'm not very good at this yet. Sorry."

"Truly... I am your friend? Your _first_ friend?"

"Yeah, you don't need to make such a big deal out of it. Anyway, I came to apologise and stuff. Are we good, or not?"

"We are good. What was the _stuff_?"

I handed my sketchbook to her.

"You can look at it."

"If it causes you embarrassment, I don't need to," Ivy said. "Though, the pictures I saw were very well drawn."

"Think of it as my penance for being a jerk," I said. I turned to flee, not wanting to be around while she looked at the drawings. "You can just bring it back to my room when you come for the movie tomorrow night."

***

A few hours later, when I'd almost fallen asleep, there came a soft knocking at my door.

"Hello?" I said.

"It's me," Ivy's voice said on the other side of the door. "May I come in?"

"Yeah, OK." I turned on the lamp on the nightstand and sat up in bed.

Ivy let herself in, sketchbook in hand.

"I said you could bring it back tomorrow."

"I wanted to talk to you now," Ivy said. "If you don't mind?"

"Sure, I wasn't asleep yet."

Ivy sat on the edge of her movie chair, sketchbook on lap, looking serious.

"I looked at all of your drawings," she said, running a hand across the plain black cover. "Many times, over the last hours."

_Oh crap._ I was suddenly wide awake.

"They are beautifully drawn," she continued. "but..."

Crap, crap, crap.

"But?"

"May I ask you a question?"

"I think friends are supposed to be able to ask each other anything," I said. "At least in books and movies."

"That's my understanding as well." She hesitated before pushing forward. "There are many drawings of me in your book, beautiful drawings, and I wondered if..."

Uncomfortable silence followed before she went on very quietly, "If you thought of me as _more_ than a friend?"

I half expected the question, but it still found me unprepared.

"You wish," I said, as casually as I could manage. "Those are just drawings. Practice for doing portraits in art class. It's not as if there are any other girls around here for me to draw."

Not totally true, but bullet dodged. _Nice work, Jack._

Ivy let out the breath she'd been holding.

"Thank goodness," she said. "I feared you wished for more than friendship."

Her sincere relief was unmistakeably honest. I felt as though something might have been ripped from my chest and trampled by a herd of wildebeests, but I tried to keep things light.

"You don't have to sound so happy about it. I'm not Quasimodo or anything."

"It's not that I don't like you, Jack, but I've other commitments that make anything more than friendship between us impossible."

"You're fourteen years old. What _commitments_ could you have?" Then a thought occurred to me. A terrible, unthinkable thought. "Do you have a boyfriend back home?"

"My promise to your grandmother prevents me from properly explaining, but yes, there's another boy. _He_ is the one for me."

_Damn_. I knew I should be grateful for finding my first real friend, but I found it difficult at that moment. Of course a girl who looked like Ivy would have a boyfriend already.

"I'm feeling a little tired," I said.

Ivy got up from the chair. "May I ask a favour?"

"Yeah."

"May I take a drawing from your book? For my room."

"You can take any of them. They're just sketches. The paper is perforated, so you can tear them out."

Ivy set the book on my dresser and carefully tore out one page.

"Thank you, Jack," she said.

Then Ivy left, taking my sketch with her along with some hopes and dreams I hadn't fully admitted to having—even to myself. Curious, I got out of bed to see which drawing she'd chosen. It was one I'd drawn of her out in the garden in her big hat and flowered sun dress.

***

I pushed thoughts of Ivy's stupid boyfriend to the back of my mind and determined to enjoy the last days of summer to the fullest. My time with Mr. Ryan was drawing to a close, and he'd be returning to his normal life soon. He was always telling me that I should be entirely present in the present when fighting. I tried to apply that principle to the rest of my day too.

There were a tonne of vegetables to harvest from the garden, and Ivy and I filled bushel basket after bushel basket every afternoon. We dropped off the baskets at the kitchen door for Ms. Mopat and collected the empty baskets again later. What she did with that small mountain of produce remained a mystery. The food we ate at mealtimes didn't account for much of it, and I figured she must be canning or freezing the rest for the winter.

Ivy and I were good again, and I tried to pick only genuine classics for our last movie nights. She was even nicer than before our fight; a small part of me wondered if she'd believed me when I said I wasn't interested in her as more than a friend. That same nagging voice suggested she might simply feel sorry for pathetic-old-Jack.

I told that voice to shut up, and pushed on with enjoying my summer.

Chapter 17 – White Sword

Mr. Ryan was busy with a phone conference regarding his next contract, leaving me on my own for evening sword practice. After most of a summer of building up my strength, I could do a full round of katas with the heavy practice sword without getting sloppy by the end. I was nowhere near to Mr. Ryan's level of smooth, fast competence, but I felt proud of my improvement. With summer drawing to an end, the evenings grew shorter, and darkness came earlier each day.

I tried to focus on my form and ignore nagging concerns about the imminent departures of Ivy and Mr. Ryan. High school started the next week—a whole other thing to look forward to. Gran would still be around, but we rarely spoke on any given day, other than to say 'hello' or possibly 'please pass the gravy'.

Glastonbury Manor would be lonely and quiet without my two improbable companions. Ivy was scheduled to return next summer. I knew that now, but summer was a whole school-year away. This summer had gone by far too quickly.

My sword practice moved me from one side of the yard to the other. The tighter katas, suitable for practice in the basement, could be strung together into longer more far-flung combinations, and Mr. Ryan had me fighting invisible enemies right across the yard.

As dusk turned to night, and I made ready to call it quits, I heard Ivy's scream come from the forest.

"Jack, help me!"

I turned to the nearest wall of dark trees, searching for her.

"Help me—please," she called again.

It sounded as though she was in serious trouble.

"Where are you?" I shouted back.

No reply came, and I ran to the edge of the yard.

"Ivy!" I shouted again.

"Jack!" she called back from the forest.

Ivy sounded terrified and desperate. She also sounded a good ways off, and without giving it any consideration, I plunged into the undergrowth. It had taken me all summer to do what I'd been so determined to accomplish on the first day. I rested the heavy practice sword on my shoulder and pushed forward in the direction from which Ivy's voice had come. A few steps in, the undergrowth thinned, and the going became easier, but it was far darker beneath the tangled branches.

"Ivy!" I shouted.

"Jack!" she shouted back.

I was heading in the right direction and I picked up my pace, worried at what might have befallen her. After fifteen or twenty minutes of racing carelessly through the forest, scrambling over fallen logs, and pushing through dense thickets, I realised her voice wasn't getting any louder. That made no sense... unless she was moving away from me.

"Ivy where are you?" I shouted for the hundredth time.

"I'm here," she called out from up ahead. Now, she definitely sounded closer.

I pushed on, for I'm not sure how long, before stumbling free of the grabby branches of the forest and into a wide clearing. I'd been moving in near darkness for the last while and seeing the bright moon above was a relief. The downside: I was completely lost and knew I couldn't have found my way back to Gran's house in the middle of day. Grass or some other low groundcover carpeted the clearing, and around me stood a ring of stones towering more than twice my height. They rose like an open maw of blunted teeth. To the best of my knowledge there were never any druids in that part of the world, and what I knew of Native Americans didn't jibe with what I saw.

"Ivy," I shouted again.

If she was nearby, she might see me in the moonlight.

"Hello... Jack."

I turned at the sound of her voice, but what I saw was a huge wolf standing between two of the massive stones. The wolf was black, except for its eyes which glowed red like hot coals.

"Aren't you going to say hello?" the wolf asked with Ivy's voice.

I came close to wetting my pants then. If you've ever been surprised in the dark by the eyes of a predator, you know the primal fear that grips you. It's an instinctive knowledge, deep in your gut, that your ancestors were once prey, and you are likely to be so in the near future. Now, multiply that by glowing demonic eyes and speaking with your friend's voice, and you can imagine where I was at, emotionally. I also _felt_ its hatred. It came from the monster as tangibly real as the sensation of strong wind on skin.

"Stop toying with it," a gravelly voice said behind me, "Let us feed while time permits."

I turned half around to see another red-eyed wolf between two stones, opposite the first. I moved my practice sword to the ready position, doing my best to keep both sets of eyes in sight. The second voice more matched the wolf's appearance and sounded appropriately terrifying.

"Just kill it for now," a third voice said. It was female, but not at all feminine. "We only have tonight, and must take the other for the full payment."

That voice came from right in front of me. A half ring of seven wolves stood before me, filling the spaces between the stones. Every part of me wanted to run, but that meant certain death. Animals that run become prey by default. A lot of wildlife documentaries had taught me that, but they'd been scarce on facts about talking wolves.

"What do you want?" I asked.

That brought a round of very disturbing wolfish laughter.

"Time passes," the female said.

She bounded towards me, covering most of the distance in a single leap. I was so surprised that I didn't react. An arrow whizzed over my right shoulder from behind, snuffing out one red eye in mid-flight. The huge animal landed in a heap, sliding almost to my feet before coming to a stop. Then the rest of the pack melted back into the forest, vanishing from sight.

"What are you doing out here?" Ivy's voice said behind me.

I spun around, looking for an attacker, until the real Ivy dashed out to join me in the middle of the stone circle. She carried her longbow with another arrow nocked and ready to draw. She'd shoved seven or eight more shafts through the tie of her striped bathrobe.

"I heard you calling for help," I said, staring down at the dead wolf, "and I followed your voice here."

"It was a trap."

"I figured that out a minute ago," I said. "This is crazy. That thing could _talk_. _A talking wolf._ How is that possible?"

"They aren't wolves, Jack." Ivy scanned around us. "They only look like them. Now isn't the time for explanations. We're outnumbered and poorly armed."

She wasn't kidding. I had a sword with no edge and she had arrows with field points. The only way they'd be reliably lethal was through an eye, and while Ivy had mad skills, hitting eyes in the dark on moving targets was terrible odds.

"How did you find me?" I asked.

"I watched you practice from my room. Then you ran off into the forest, abandoning the protection of the wards. The mistress of the house and Mr. Ryan were nowhere to be found. These were sitting out." She shook her bow and arrow at me. "I hoped to find you swiftly, and return you to the wards, but you moved far in so a short a time. Why did you think I'd be foolish enough to be out in this forest?"

"I didn't think," I said. "I heard you calling for help and ran after your voice. It's not like I could be expected to know there are freaky demon wolves out here."

"They're strongest within this circle. We must break free of it."

I looked back at the gap we'd both arrived through. A set of red eyes now filled it. The wolves had taken the time we'd spent talking to surround us. There weren't enough of them to block all the gaps, but more than enough to stop any real chance of escape. Ivy shot at the wolf without hesitation, and it sidestepped her arrow easily.

"This bow is a toy," Ivy said. "Not suitable for hunting rabbits."

I wanted to tell her to run for it, while I distracted our attackers, but the chance never came.

The pack attacked us together from all sides, and the first wolf fell to my practice sword. A lucky blow to its head, as it lunged for my throat, dropped the creature at my feet. The sword didn't have had an edge, but it was still three feet of steel bar. Another fell to my dull blade as it tried to wrench the bow from Ivy's hands. My swing hit it just in front of the shoulder with a sickening crack, and it dropped, twitching on the ground. Powerful jaws had already snapped Ivy's bow in half at the handle.

Snarls filled the night, and my world narrowed to one filled with shadows, eyes, and teeth as the pack swarmed around us.

Somewhere in the madness, fangs tore into the meat of my shoulder. I swear I felt every tooth as it punctured skin and drove through muscle. If I'd been a fraction of a second slower, that wolf would have had my throat, finishing me quickly. Its hot breath tickled my ear, which created a bizarre contrast to the stabbing pain. I struggled to keep my feet as two hundred pounds of growling beast ripped at my shoulder. The three feet of steel in my hand, that had seemed pitifully short a moment before, now proved awkwardly long as I fought to defend myself. The wolf scraped its claws down my left arm and the side of my chest as I struck ineffectual blows to its head. I had to shake it loose and fast—it wasn't alone.

The wolf's weight took a toll on my already tired and injured body. If I didn't break free of its grip soon, another member of the pack was certain to come in for the kill. A tiny, exhausted part of me wanted to give up.

JACK!

I heard Ivy scream behind me, and I remembered that I wasn't alone—but that if I fell—she would be. A new strength flowed into my arms, and I attacked the wolf with berserk fury. Our angry growls blended until I couldn't tell where the wolf's began and mine ended. Again and again, I struck head and muzzle. My left hand pushed, punched, and scratched at the coarse fur of its underbelly. Finally, it released my shoulder and backed away. Ivy had driven one of her arrows between its ribs leaving the rest of the broken shaft clenched in her blood-covered fist. We only had time for a shared glance before the next attack came.

My fear gave me strength, and I no longer noticed the weight of the practice sword. I drove the wolves back a few paces, swinging around us in careless arcs. Four big and extremely angry animals remained. Luck, such as we'd had, couldn't possibly continue, and now the wolves attacked with more caution and purpose.

As one distracted me to my front, another lunged at my rear and ripped into the back of my leg. Ivy attacked it with an arrow in each hand, and the wolf danced back out of reach. My leg burned, and I felt warm blood running down my pant leg, filling my shoe.

I still stood, but I wondered for how long.

The wolves harried us for what felt an eternity, but were likely only minutes. They mostly focused on me. Blood ran into one of my eyes from a cut on my head, and sharp teeth had torn deep gashes into my left shoulder. All I'd accomplished was crippling the front leg of one of the remaining wolves, and loss of blood was making me feel woozy.

Amid the snarling, screaming, and blood I failed to see the woman arrive.

Ivy screamed, and I spun about. She was on her back, desperately fighting to keep sharp teeth from her throat, each tiny hand was full of black fur. The wolf had size and gravity on its side, and Ivy was losing the battle. Unsure if I could hit the wolf without hitting Ivy, my now slow-responding brain hesitated as darkness crept in at the edges of my vision. Behind me, I heard snarls and squeals, followed by silence. _You should do something Jack_ , part of my brain said. Before I figured out what that was... a new impossibility appeared.

Between one blink of my eye and the next, a woman stood behind the wolf ravaging Ivy. With casual ease, she reached down her left hand and grabbed the wolf by the scruff of its neck. Then she picked the huge animal up and tossed it like a sack of garbage. The wolf flew a good twenty feet; its flight cut short by one of the standing stones. A wet crunch was followed by a bloody slide down the face of the stone, and the image of a bug on a car window flashed through my mind. A quick glance back told me the rest of the wolves were likewise dead. Two lay in pieces, cut clean in half, but I couldn't tell how the last one had died. I shuffled to Ivy's side. She still hadn't risen from the ground. As the last clouds obscuring the full moon were swept away, I got my first good look at the woman. I didn't know what she was... but definitely not human.

A regular woman could have dressed up to look like her, with a Hollywood makeup team to help, but looking at her, I _knew_. Not human. She was a slim woman about my height, which is tall for a lady, and she had long, straight hair that fell almost to her knees. That hair was silver. Not grey, or white from age, or lack of pigmentation. _Silver_. It looked as if you could melt it down for jewellery or fancy cutlery. Her skin had a silvery sheen too, and her eyes had a distinctive slant. Minus those eyes she might have been an Asian lady in full-on cosplay. Her eyes made the difference. They were glowing golden in the moonlight, like a cat's, and the pupils were slit like a reptile's. Old was the first word that came to mind when I looked into those eyes. The second word was dragon.

It sounds crazy I know, but you had to be there. Subconsciously, I noted a few other things in that first glance: she was inhumanly beautiful, in a cold, distant way, dark scale armour covered her like a short dress, leaving arms and legs bare, and the longer I looked at her eyes the more fascinating they became.

After her eyes, I mostly noticed her sword. She had a _really_ big sword. It was a long broadsword and completely white, possibly carved from the rib of a whale or something. Even the cross guard was white, and the whole thing had been etched with symbols that I couldn't discern in the moonlight. Did I mention it was big? The sword was almost as long as the woman was tall. Something about the blade drew my eye and briefly held me mesmerised. Then my thoughts turned back to Ivy who huddled on the ground at my feet.

"Thank you for saving us," I said. What else do you say to a dragon lady when you're all hanging out at mini-Stonehenge?

"Move out of the way, boy," the woman said. Her voice was low and husky. "I'm here for the girl."

"What?" I asked. I wasn't feeling too great.

"Jack, you must run," Ivy whispered.

I saw renewed terror in her eyes. My slow-moving brain was having trouble putting two and two together, but my body knew what to do. I stepped up between the woman and Ivy, painfully raising my practice sword to the ready position as the woman brought the white blade around in a slashing arc. She was so fast I couldn't have reacted on my best day. The practice sword flew from my grip, and I was knocked back onto Ivy.

I heard my weapon land with a dull thud somewhere in the distance.

Chapter 18 – Summer's End

"You've fought bravely boy," the woman said. "Well beyond your years. If you give me your name, I'll remember it, and grant you a merciful death."

That didn't sound like a very good deal. I tried to focus through the pain and blood loss; to remember what Mr. Ryan taught me. I looked the woman in her eyes.

"My name is Jack."

"A lie," the woman said. She looked even angrier. "Will you end your life with a lie upon your lips?"

"Please," Ivy said from behind me. "Let him go. He's just a foolish boy who tried to help me."

"The hour is late for that," the woman said. She looked back at me. " _Your name?_ "

You might think I was scared. What with having my butt handed to me by demon wolves and this dragon lady. And sure I _was_ afraid, but now, woozy or not, I was getting angry. So, full disclosure, as my mother would say—my name _isn't_ Jack. I tell people it is, because the third reason I had no friends, on top of the moving around, and the bad temper... was my name. My stupid, stupid name. Other people have crappy names they dread having read aloud on the first day of school, but they all feel better at attendance time when my turn comes. Now, I was mad. It wasn't enough for this psycho to kill me in the forest with her creepy sword; she had to humiliate me in front of Ivy too. _Fine._

"Jakalain Moonborn Talantial," I said through clenched teeth.

Ivy gasped, and the woman laughed. When she stopped laughing and looked down at me, I somehow knew she wasn't laughing about how funny my name sounds.

"So much vengeance in a single night," she said. "Well fought, Son of Talantial."

When she drew back the huge sword, I tried to cover Ivy with my body, but it was hopeless. I wouldn't even slow her swing. The white blade flew towards us with impossible speed, and in that instant I realised that Ivy's little hand was clenched in my own. The pale blade stopped dead a few inches from my face—caught by a silver one. Then, with a screech and a hail of sparks, Mr. Ryan pushed the bigger sword up with the library sword and threw the woman back a few paces. He moved to stand between her and us, sword at the ready.

I was caught somewhere between wanting to cheer and wanting to cry. Mr. Ryan was a guy you could count on. Without taking his eyes from the dragon lady, he reached up, removed, and tossed me the little headlamp he was wearing. Then he gave her his salute, the same one that both begins and finishes his katas.

Seeing the salute, the woman hesitated, looking Mr. Ryan up and down before attacking. You'll have to trust me when I say that no sword fight you've ever seen in a movie comes close to the spectacle Ivy and I watched in the stone circle. Mr. Ryan and the dragon lady ignored us completely. I knew Mr. Ryan was good, never having touched him with my sword, but dancing with the library sword in the moonlight, he was beautiful. It was very much a battle between raw power and grace, and the dragon lady brought crazy strength and speed to the fight.

Mr. Ryan is a strong man... I spotted him sometimes when he did bench presses in the gym, and he's _strong_. His strength didn't come close to the dragon lady's. Several times, when forced to block her attack directly, Mr. Ryan was literally thrown from his feet. He always found them again, like a cat, circling away and returning as good as he got. Even in my dim state, I recognised that I'd never be Mr. Ryan's equal. Not with a lifetime of practice. Watching him fight was like watching a racehorse run or an eagle fly. It was what he was made for. Stronger or not, the dragon lady wasn't a match for Mr. Ryan either. He fought her the way he'd told me to fight a stronger opponent—with his mind.

Then he disarmed her.

It was too fast and the night too dim for me to see how. The white sword lay at his feet, and the dragon lady crouched, several paces away, empty-handed. Mr. Ryan had won. Inexplicably, he flipped the big sword at the woman with the tip of his sword and took a step back. She caught her sword and stared at Mr. Ryan as though she was trying to see _through_ him. I took my first breath in a while.

"Why did you stop?" the woman asked.

Mr. Ryan lowered his sword. I'd never seen an expression like the one on his face before, and I'm not sure how to describe it, but it was a look of desperate longing.

"I've spent my entire life searching," he said.

Something in his expression intrigued the silver-haired woman, and she lowered her own sword.

"Searching for what?" she asked.

"For you," Mr. Ryan said. Then he laughed a laugh I could only call merry. I'm talking _Santa Claus_ merry.

Across the clearing, I saw tears well up in the golden eyes.

"Janik?" the woman asked.

Beside me, Ivy made a sound, and she squeezed my hand hard, but I couldn't look away.

"I feel I should know that name," Mr. Ryan said.

The woman extended the white sword toward Mr. Ryan. Part of me was impressed by the strength she must have to hold the enormous weapon at arm's length, and part me wanted to scream, _Don't do it!_

I kept silent as Mr. Ryan reached out his left hand and touched the pure white blade. The sword flared into life. It shone so brightly, blade and hilt that I had to turn away and cover my eyes. When I looked back, the woman and Mr. Ryan hadn't moved. She'd let the tip of her sword fall to the earth and wept in the bright moonlight. Her grief was palpable, and I pitied the woman who had intended to kill me.

"Why are you protecting them?" she asked through her tears.

"I gave my word."

"Has your heart found forgiveness?" Anger was back in her voice.

"Never," Mr. Ryan said. He made the word sound as if it was forged from steel. "They've taken what was most precious from me."

The woman's responding smile was fierce, and as a golden circle of light flared beneath her feet, she threw the white sword to Mr. Ryan. He caught it neatly by the grip.

"My time is up," she said. "Take your sword and find a way back."

Then she took a slow step, backwards into the light. I blacked out soon after that, but I'm sure I heard Ivy tell Mr. Ryan how sorry she was about something.

***

There isn't much else to tell you concerning my first summer at Glastonbury Manor. I spent the next couple of days drifting in and out of sleep. Gran told me my fever was very high, and that she'd have taken me to the hospital if Dr. Davis hadn't been staying with us. Those days are blurry, and I briefly wondered if I'd imagined the fight in the forest and the silver-haired woman too, but I have scars proving I didn't. Although I heard pieces of two conversations from my sick-bed over the course of those days, I didn't know how much was real, and how much was dream—induced by fever.

"I wished to say farewell, and to thank him," Ivy said.

"He won't wake before you leave," Gran told her.

"Did he know who I was the whole time?"

"Unless you've told him yourself, I expect he _still_ doesn't. Did you hold to your promise?"

"I did. Why didn't you tell me who _he_ was?" Ivy asked.

"That wouldn't have been fair to him, now would it? I wanted the two of you to start on equal terms, and to get to know one another, without the rest influencing you."

"But it won't matter, will it? In the end, the outcome will be the same, won't it?"

"The pact cannot be broken, but that doesn't mean there can't be happiness."

"Thank you," Ivy said. "You've given me something to take back with me that I'd never thought to have."

"A new understanding of computers?"

Ivy laughed before answering.

"Hope."

"You're leaving us?" Gran asked.

"Yes." Mr. Ryan said.

"What will you do?"

"My plans are my own. I need to get away from here." Mr. Ryan sounded angry.

"Thank you for saving my grandson."

"I didn't do it for you."

"I know. You had many reasons not to."

"It's taking everything I have—not to kill you where you stand." Mr. Ryan spoke softly. "I gave my word, so I'll return each summer to protect the girl."

"And Jack?"

"Unfortunately... I already like the boy."

"You've always been a good and honourable man."

"Ivangelain will return after winter's last frost?"

"Yes."

"Then I will too. Say goodbye to the boy for me."

I woke to find Ivy and Mr. Ryan gone. Gran passed on their goodbyes, but I couldn't help feeling hurt. I replayed that night, and the blurry conversations, over and over in my head, trying to make sense of it all. Gran refused to answer any of my questions, telling me I'd get the answers at the _proper_ time. Ivy obviously didn't leave a phone number, or an email address. That was to be expected. That Mr. Ryan didn't either, made me sad; though I knew they'd both be back next summer.

From the long bus ride, to the reading of my name in homeroom on the first day, high school started as poorly as I'd anticipated. Finding friends at school didn't look promising, but I reminded myself that even if I wouldn't get to see them until next summer, I did have two friends now.

At least, I thought I did.

In the meantime, I went to school and waited... for the last frost of winter.

— **End of Book 1—**

The Legend of the White Sword continues in Book 2:

