Ivy of Our Hearts

Six

My mother used to warn me about staying out in the rain. She'd warn about all the illnesses I'd get from keeping out in the cold. They'd range from a simple cold to a horrible case of the flu, sometimes even pneumonia. I guess it was what her parents told her, and their parents told them. I supposed they would have known, having faced lots of rain in the Caribbean. So, my mother would warn me, but each time I'd never listen.

Whenever it rained, I'd go out to the front porch, underneath the safety of the deck's roof, and let the cold air wash over me. And it felt good, so unlike how I felt dragging my feet behind Margaret through the woods. Maybe there was truth to that old saying "Mothers know best." But I kept my mouth shut through the bursts of pain behind my eyes and the aches that made me feel like I'd been in a mosh pit. I clenched my teeth the whole way because we were lost, adrift, and maybe even missed more than we knew.

We wandered for two more days and still could not find our way to the trail. I suspected that the farther we went the farther away we got from it; either that or it had disappeared, as if trails could do that. We'd spend our mornings on foot, stopping now and then to sip from our water bottles or nibble on the few pieces of granola Margaret had left. We were careful to not overeat, but sometimes boredom got the better of us.

The morning of the seventh day, we'd been walking for a while when Margaret stopped, tossed up her arms, then let them fall to her sides. "Maybe we should split up," she said. She faced the other way. Her slouched shoulders were what gave her away. She wanted to give up, give in, and let the woods swallow us whole. I didn't doubt that was what it wanted all along—to swallow us, then to spit out our marrow.

"We could tie my ribbon around a tree," she said, turning to me. "So at least we'd know if we'd been going in circles. God knows everything in this forest looks the same."

She'd mumbled the last part.

I leaned against a tree and tipped my water bottle up to my mouth, swallowing down the last of it. I let out a hearty "ahh" and wiped my mouth with my hand. "We should stick together," I said, not ignoring the fact us separating would be dangerous.

I put my hand over my eyes as a shield from the sun's glare and gazed up at the sky. Slate blue. If one of us knew how to climb a tree, we could maybe get up high enough to see where we were. "If we split up we might lose each other," I said, which would have been ironic since we'd been inseparable since the day we met, one summer when my mother had forced me, along with her best berry pie, to greet our new neighbors.

A thud made me avert my eyes from the slate blue sky. Margaret lay on the ground. She shook like someone who'd been overcome by so much grief they could no longer stand it. I didn't go to her right away. I watched her, transfixed as she sobbed into the dirt, the way you'd watch a toddler throw a tantrum. She lifted her head and said, "We're as good as dead now anyway." Dirt stuck to her lips and she spat it out. "I didn't even want to do this," she said. "If it weren't for you, I would have never done this. It's your fault you know."

I let my water bottle slip from my fingers to the ground, like a dead thing it lay as useless as the dirt she'd spat out. "My fault," I said. "I didn't drag you here. You're the one who wanted to come."

"I came because I knew you wanted to. Poor Ivy. You couldn't even last a day in here on your own." She hiccupped and wiped her tears away.

I could have curled up on the ground near my bottle like another useless thing. I could have yelled, but I didn't. I went to her and knelt in front of her. I tried to take her hands, but she pulled them away. She scrunched them into fists in the dirt.

"I know you're scared but we're in this together," I said.

"No." She shook her head. "You are but I'm not." She got up and stomped around me. "We should stay here. It would be easier for them to find us if we're not moving."

She said it like it had been my idea to split up in the first place. I opened my mouth to okay, but what came out sounded wild, feral. I howled. I whimpered. My eyes watered. I cradled my head in my hands and pursed my lips, but it didn't help. I cried out as another headache struck both sides of my head. For someone like me, who never got sick, the pain was unspeakable; as if someone had found the most jagged stone they could and had bashed me over the head with it until I couldn't even hold my eyes open.

Margaret came to me in an instant. She smoothed my hair. "What's wrong?"

I took deep breaths through my mouth, while she stroked my hair, and whispered to me, "It'll be okay. We'll get out of here somehow." I lifted my hand to tell her to stop, that I was okay, but instead she held it. "You're on fire, Ivy."

"No, it's nothing," I said. Or at least I think I did, then I must have tried to stand because I had the sensation of sinking before everything went dark.

The darkness lasted for what felt like hours.

There were voices there. Sometimes they sounded like my mother's, sometimes like my father's, sometimes like Margaret's. Other times, the voices sang to me in a voice I didn't recognize, a lullaby so beautiful I thought the stars had learned to sing.

They asked me things, too. When I'd come back and if I planned to sleep forever. They said they missed me. They said they were sorry for what they'd said.

My answer was always the same. "Let me sleep forever. Let me sleep and listen to the stars sing."

But I didn't think they heard me because they always asked. Their hands roved around my body, along my cheeks, my neck, and my chest. They were always soft hands and always gentle, so I didn't mind.

"Ivy, look at me," somebody said. It was Margaret. She pressed something supple like a kiss against my mouth. I attempted to open my eyes to see, but my eyelids were heavy, as if someone had taken the time to stitch them shut.

"I can carry her," someone else said.

A boy. Maybe a man. I couldn't tell, though I thought I recognized his voice. Was he the one who'd been singing to me? It couldn't have been Margaret, her singing voice being the most awful thing about her. The melody of the lullaby had already slipped from me. I remembered all but a note—a single word—love.

"Don't hurt her," Margaret said.

"Don't worry. I won't," he said.

"Who are you?" I asked the stranger.

"Phillip," he said.

"Phillip," I repeated. Something tickled my brain, told me to remember, and although I tasted it on my tongue, I couldn't tease it out. I tried my hardest to open my eyes to see Phillip, but sleep lured me. His hands were warm.

Stars bloomed beneath my skin where he touched me.