The Changeling (13 page)

Martha looked down at herself uneasily. She was much slimmer in most places, and quite a bit taller; and except for the retainer, the braces were finally gone from her teeth.

“Everyone says I look better,” she said.

“You look pretty,” Ivy said, matter of factly, as if it hardly mattered. “But you’re starting to look grown-up already. Look at that.” She pointed to the front of Martha’s Tee-shirt.

“Oh that,” Martha hunched her shoulders and grinned sheepishly. “That’s mostly the bra I’m wearing. I borrowed it from Cath.”

“Oh,” Ivy said. It was a perfectly blank-faced “Oh,” but Martha heard all sorts of questions and judgments in it.

“Well,” she said defensively, “all the other girls wear them.”

Ivy only looked thoughtful, but after a minute she said almost fiercely, “I am
never
going to grow up.”

“How can you help it?”

“I can. I’ll just refuse to. You could too if you wanted to.”

"You mean you think we can really stop growing?"

“No. We’ll go on growing in some ways I guess. That’s not what counts. Aunt Evaline says that lots and lots of people never grow up. But there are good ways and bad ways to do it.”

“What’s the difference?”

“I’m not too sure yet. But it has something to do with knowing what you’re doing, I guess. It’s the ones who think they are grown up and aren’t who are really messed up.”

“And what’s it like if you do it the right way?”

“Well, it’s like—Aunt Evaline, for instance. And you know who else? Mrs. Smith.”

“Mrs. Smith?”

“Sure. There are all sorts of ways you can tell about Mrs. Smith.”

“Well, she looks pretty old to me.”

“Oh, you mean her hair’s gray and like that. Well sure, but that’s not what counts. What counts is the way she does things. Don’t you remember how she always does everything almost like it’s a game. And the way she is with animals. Even the way she walks.”

“The way she walks?”

“Umm,” Ivy said. “She kind of skips. Even if she doesn’t really, she always seems about to.”

“Oh yes,” Martha said. “I know what you mean. About Mrs. Smith anyway. But how do you do it? How could
we
do it?”

“I’m not sure yet, but I’ve been working on it. One thing, I know it won’t be easy because we’ve waited too long. We’re really too old already. Eleven would have been the best time. Eleven is just about the best age for almost everything.”

“Well, I guess we’re too late for that,” Martha said.

“Maybe, unless we can go backward. It might be possible. I’m going to think about it.”

T
HE DAY AFTER IVY CAME
back, Martha and Ivy met early to go over the old Ridge Trail to the Onowora Stables to see Mrs. Smith. On the way Ivy talked again about the problem of being too old.

“I’ve been thinking about it,” Ivy said, “and I really believe we ought to do something about it. I mean, there must be some way to keep from letting yourself just go on and on until you wake up someday and find out you’ve turned into an ordinary adult.”

Martha didn’t know quite what to say. For one thing, she wasn’t absolutely sure that Ivy was serious. She seemed to be, but Martha felt a little uncertain. Ivy had been gone such a long time, Martha felt it was possible that she was out of practice in understanding just what Ivy meant by the strange things she sometimes said. As they walked, Martha watched Ivy carefully for clues.

They were walking single file along the narrow trail. Ivy was walking ahead, looking back over her shoulder now and then as she talked. She was wearing a very childish dress for an eighth grader—a cotton dress with gathered fullness in rows of faded smocking across the chest. Her feet were bare and dusty, and her hair, in its one thick braid, hung far below her waist. Her small thin face seemed more overpowered than ever by her amazing eyes. Ivy’s eyes had always seemed almost supernatural, but now there seemed to be even more of a difference about them, and Martha was beginning to feel more and more that there was a deep and hidden difference about Ivy, herself. Sometimes it wasn’t there at all, but it flickered up now and then like a flame, burning and angry.

Halfway along Martha asked, “What’s wrong with being an adult?” and without warning, the flame flared.

“If you don’t know, there’s no use trying to tell you.”

They walked on, silently. Martha wanted to say something, but she didn’t know what. Besides, she could tell it wouldn’t do any good as long as Ivy held her head stiff and kicked at the dust with her bare feet. But then suddenly, there was a lizard lying in the trail and Ivy squatted down beside it. Martha went down beside her, and they waited silently for the lizard to move.

“Do you think it’s dead?” Martha asked.

Ivy glanced up and her eyes were cool again, but clouded with worry. “I don’t think so. He moved a little as we came up. He’s hurt, though.”

“Part of his tail is gone,” Martha said. “Something must have tried to catch him, and his tail came off as he got away.”

Ivy nodded. “Maybe he’s just not over the shock,” she said. She touched him with her finger tip. “He’s very cold. Maybe some sun would help.”

“Lizards like the sun,” Martha agreed.

Ivy picked the lizard up gently and carried him to a sunny rock. “There,” she said. “Do you feel any better?” The lizard raised his head and looked at them, and Martha and Ivy looked at each other and smiled.

“I’ve been thinking about it,” Martha said as they started on, “and I think you’re right about eleven being the best age of all.” It was the truth, too. She
had
been thinking about it—about how nice things had been when they were eleven—how simple it was then to have a private world like Bent Oaks Grove, and how much easier it was to keep your various worlds apart when you needed to.

Ivy flicked a grin back at Martha and ran and jumped up onto a dead log.

“About what’s wrong with grown-ups,” she said, balancing along the log like a tightrope walker, “is that they think they know all the answers.”

“I know,” Martha said, nodding hard. “They really do.”

“No they don’t,” Ivy said. “It would be impossible.” She tried to walk out on a narrow branch leading from the main trunk of the dead tree. “Immmm-possible,” she said again as she fell off.

Martha laughed. “That’s what I meant,” she said. “That they really do
think
they know all the answers. They think it’s terribly important to know all the answers.”

“Oh,” Ivy said. She got up off the ground and got back on the trunk of the tree. She started off on the branch again holding her arms out for balance. “The answers aren’t important really,” she said. “What’s important is—is—is—” she stopped because she had reached a very narrow bouncy part and was balancing along it toward where it almost touched a big boulder. She wavered, caught herself, and riding the bounce she jumped from the branch to the boulder. “What’s important is,” she went on as she scrambled up the side of the rock, “what’s important is—” She reached the top and threw up her arms in a gesture of victory. Then she grinned down at Martha with her hands on her hips, “What’s important is—knowing all the questions.” She collapsed then on top of the rock giggling, and Martha scrambled up beside her. They sat there giggling on top of the rock for quite a while, leaning against each other’s backs.

When they were finally walking along the trail again, Ivy said, “I think that’s part of it, all right.”

“Of what?”

“Part of the spell. I’ve been trying to think up a good spell to say to enchant us into never growing up. And that’s going to be part of it. That about knowing the questions.”

“Know all the questions, but not the answers,” Martha chanted. “Like that?”

“Yes,” Ivy said. “Just like that. Remember the spell we did to keep you from staying in Florida?”

“Well, not exactly every word of it. But I remember some of the words. And I remember how it worked! Mr. Millmore. And I remember how you said that was the way with magic—that it never does the thing you expect, that magic is never the same twice.”

“Hey, that’s some more of it,” Ivy said. “Always different—and never the same.” Ivy stopped and breathed deeply. “We’re almost there,” she said. “I can smell the stables.”

Martha sniffed. “Me too. Doesn’t it smell great? I think the smell of horses is the most exciting smell in the world. Don’t you?”

“Ummhuh,” Ivy said and started to run. They ran the, rest of the way down the path to the back fence, and scrambling over it, they went on running, clear to the door of the stables. From there they went very slowly, saying hello to all the old horses with pats and scratches, and introducing Ivy to the new ones that had come since she went away. After the horses, they went looking for Mrs. Smith at the house.

It turned out that Mrs. Smith was painting somewhere near the lake, so Martha and Ivy decided to look for her there. They were part way through the north pasture when they saw Mrs. Smith standing in front of her easel, far down toward the lake. They ran to the fence, climbed up on it and yelled and waved. As soon as she saw them, Mrs. Smith waved back and started running toward them.

Ivy looked at Martha significantly. “See what I mean about her?” she said. “Real ordinary adults just don’t run like that.”

And when Mrs. Smith reached them, she hugged them both at once, without even stopping to wipe her painty hands.

The three of them walked down to the easel to see what Mrs. Smith was doing. “What do you think of it?” she asked.

“Is that an old man or a tree?” Martha asked. Mrs. Smith didn’t answer, so she added, “Or both?”

“Or the ghost of both?” Ivy said.

“Or the ghost of winter?” Martha said.

Mrs. Smith laughed. “I was beginning to wonder, myself,” she said. “Thanks for helping me decide. Have an orange. There’s some in the basket.”

So they climbed up on the fence and sat eating oranges which smelled just slightly of turpentine, and talked about what they had been doing. That is, Martha and Mrs. Smith did. Ivy said very little, and Martha guessed that she didn’t want to talk about the Carsons, even to Mrs. Smith. Finally Mrs. Smith asked Ivy a direct question.

“And what have you been doing since you left Rosewood Hills?”

Ivy shrugged, “Nothing. Nothing much. Waiting mostly. Just waiting.”

“Waiting?” Mrs. Smith asked, but Ivy didn’t answer, so Mrs. Smith answered for her. “For the future, I guess? What are you planning for the future, Ivy? What are you planning to do when you’re grown-up?”

Martha started to smile, and then Ivy did, too.

“Did I say something funny?” Mrs. Smith asked.

“It’s just that Ivy is never going to grow up. We’ve just been talking about it. Ivy is making a spell so that she will never have to grow up.”

“Wonderful,” Mrs. Smith said. “I want to hear about that, too. But first I want you to tell me what you are planning to be doing when you are
not
grown-up, about ten years from now.”

Ivy nodded. “Okay. I’ll be a great ballet dancer. I’m going to study in a school in New York, and then I’m going to dance all over the world.”

“She’s already studied some with a lady in Harley’s Crossing who’s a friend of her aunt’s,” Martha said.

So then Ivy told Mrs. Smith about Mrs. W. who had been a great dancer herself once, and who had some friends in New York that Ivy could live with and study ballet, some day when she was older and had some money for the school.

“And what are you going to be?” Mrs. Smith asked Martha.

Martha was thinking about an answer when Ivy said, “Martha is going to be a famous star of stage and screen.”

“I am?” Martha began to giggle. “It’s the first I’ve heard about it.”

But Mrs. Smith didn’t seem to see that it was a joke. “Yes,” she said, “I wouldn’t be surprised. And what is this about not growing up?”

“Well,” Ivy was grinning wickedly, “we were talking about people who never grew up, and we decided you were one.”

Mrs. Smith laughed. “So that’s what’s the matter with me. I’ve always wondered.”

“No really,” Ivy said. “We were talking about people who never turn into ‘Grown-Ups.’” When she said “Grown-Ups,” she stuck out her chest and chin and looked down her nose. “You know. That kind.”

“Yes,” Mrs. Smith said. “I think I know exactly what you mean.”

When Mrs. Smith had to go home to make lunch, Martha and Ivy started home. On the way, they began working on the spell again. They worked back and forth, suggesting lines and improving on them until they were satisfied. Then they started running, chanting the lines over and over as they ran. The chant went—“Know all the Questions, but not the Answers—Look for the Different, instead of the Same—Never Walk where there’s room for Running—Don’t do anything that can’t be a Game.”

As they went they chanted louder and louder and ran wilder and wilder, scrambling up rocks and jumping off, jumping up to swing on tree branches and rolling down grassy slopes. When they reached Bent Oaks Grove, they ran, staggering a little from exhaustion, right through the Entry Gates and across the grove to Tower Tree. Two little girls playing house in the cave stopped, frozen with amazement, as Martha and Ivy staggered and chanted across the grove and up the tree as far as Falcon’s Roost.

In the Roost, they collapsed, laughing and gasping for breath. It took quite a while for the laughing and gasping to die down enough to let them speak. Then they peeked out of the roost and started laughing all over again when they caught sight of the little girls tiptoeing out of the grove carrying their dolls and playhouse stuff.

“They probably think we just escaped from the insane asylum,” Martha gasped. “Poor things. They probably think we might get violent any minute.” She pulled her hair down over her face and pretended to come at Ivy with claws and fangs. Ivy pretended back for a minute, before they both collapsed again.

They were both quiet for several minutes before Ivy said, “You see? It really works. I feel a whole lot younger already. Don’t you?”

T
HAT VERY NIGHT AFTER
spending a whole day, a really great day, with Ivy, Martha made a shocking discovery. What she discovered was hard to see clearly, and it could be looked at from different angles, but mainly it looked a lot like treachery. She began to recognize it as treachery while she was lying in bed very late that night, trying to go to sleep. Instead she kept thinking, and worrying about Monday.