Ivy Sparks
Two days now and Grandma hasn’t said anything about the night I snuck out. I know she never believed that Nathan and I had just decided to quietly step out for a late night walk, but somehow, she’s chosen not to make an issue of it. Truth be told, I think she’s actually having fun not saying anything and watching me squirm. I’m simply dying to know what exactly I did wrong that I completely failed to pull an imp, even though I know I made no mistakes, and all the signs were there that I’d opened the gate properly and sent the call through. There must be something I screwed up, and I can’t ask Grandma what it was.
While I’m sitting there squirming, Carl comes over for dinner. Grandma is a trucker, mostly short runs around the state that just take a day, but sometimes she makes longer runs that have her gone for up to a week. Tomorrow, she leaves for one of those trips, and she likes to have Carl around the house while she’s gone.
It’s not really that she doesn’t trust me at the house all on my own. Except, of course, for her recent worries about me working spells on my own now that I’ve turned eighteen. Other than that, I have always made it to school when she’s been gone, made it to work, not had any raucous parties at the place, or invited sketchy boys over.
She just doesn’t like the idea of me being alone in the house, without somebody else around to fill the place. I know she agonizes over it every time she leaves me for anything more than a day trip. At the same time, being on the road is something that truly fills her with joy in a way that no other job ever would. It took her a while to stop feeling guilty for doing work she loves and that supports us very well. I mean, she still doesn’t like leaving me alone, but she’s stopped feeling as if she’s the worst person on Earth when she does it. She just brings Carl over for dinner before she leaves, and makes sure he’ll spend at least a little bit of every day with me until she gets back.
While the two of them go outside to look at something on her truck, I get the table set up in preparation for the meatloaf coming out of the oven. When the timer goes off, I peek out the window, and see the two of them leaning against the truck talking. I knock on the window, and Grandma looks up at me. She holds up two fingers, to ask for a couple more minutes. Those two minutes turn into four, then six. I go to knock on the window again, but they’re not by the truck anymore.
I step outside, and resist the urge to call for her. Carl and Grandma aren’t the types to wander off because they’re distracted or bored. If they’re away from the truck and the house, there’s a reason for it. I open myself up a little bit to The Way, and feel out for her. I catch a little bit of her presence behind the house, and she’s got a fuzzy, prickly aura. She’s really annoyed at something.
A few minutes later, they finally come inside. I get up, but Carl waves me to a seat at the table, and handles getting dinner on the table.
“Something big out there?” I ask, once we’re all seated and started serving ourselves. “Bear or mountain lion get in too close to the house recently?”
“Yeah,” Grandma says. “I’m going to have Carl spend the nights here while I’m gone this time.”
I open my mouth to protest, but she cuts me off.
“Ivy. Something’s not right about this one. I know you can normally handle yourself, but whatever’s out there this time seems like it might be unpredictable. I’m not having Carl stay to take care of you. I’m having him stay because you’re going to need four eyes, four ears, and two heads, alright?”
I look over at Carl, and he gives me a small nod. He thinks I behave myself too much and don’t live it up enough, so if he’s agreeing with Grandma about this, I should take it seriously. “Alright,” I say.
“And that means no private excursions after dark. You know what I mean, right?” Grandma asks.
Carl gives me another nod. He knows about Grandma and me. He doesn’t have a lick of power of his own, but he understands what we’re all about. Grandma relies on him from time to time to keep the physical space around her circle, or to help her out with spells that are more physically demanding.
“Is this possibly something I did?” I sit there for a minute, wondering who it was that just asked that question using my voice, when I realize that the words came out of my mouth. I suddenly wish I could reach back and pluck them from the air. But it’s too late. If Grandma hadn’t already figured out yet exactly what kind of spell I was doing, she knows now.
“No,” she says, simply and without emotion or inflection, just a rapid shake of her head. “Nothing you did out there would attract this.”
“What is ‘this’?” I ask.
“An animal that isn’t right,” Carl says.
Grandma shoots him a quick glare before blanking her face.
“What you were doing the other night was well contained, and not the kind of thing that would invoke a demon that could possess an animal. This is completely unrelated to that.”
“So what is it?” I ask again. “Having extra eyes, ears, and heads doesn’t do any good if they don’t know what they’re looking for!”
Grandma takes a bit of meatloaf and chews it slowly, thinking, trying to find the right way to put words together. Finally, she sets her fork down, takes a drink of beer, and looks at me.
“There are plenty of people with power in the world, and they’re not all friendly to each other. Somebody’s been around lately that I don’t want on this land. Now, I know I ride you hard a lot, Ivy, but I really need you to not fight me on this one, alright?”
Grandma gives me a sharp look, as sharp as I’ve ever gotten from her. I nod, and she goes on. “The more power you have, the more power a foe can use against you. And you have a lot more power than skill at using it yet. You see anybody on this land that doesn’t belong here, get inside and stay there, get in touch with Carl and let him deal with it. This is something Carl has a much better chance at handling than you do.”
Carl takes my hand. “You don’t need to be scared, Ivy, just cautious, alright?”
“Yeah,” I say. I know Grandma isn’t telling me the full truth, but I’m not sure which parts to believe or not. Carl, at least, is being genuine with me. I know he’s been very, very attracted to me since about the time we started high school, and ever since he realized it, the only time he reaches out and touches me is when he’s very serious about something.
Grandma reaches out for my other hand. “Carl’s right. Don’t be scared, just be careful while I’m gone.”