Enchanted Ivy

Carter.

She felt as if the world froze as she stared at the author's name. Grandpa's name was Richard. This book was written by a William Carter.

It was written by her father.

For an instant, she thought she must be hallucinating. But that was impossible. She'd taken the medicine. It was only that the book had surprised her, that was all. She hadn't expected to encounter anything that her father had done or touched. Her fingers traced lightly over his name, embossed in gold print on the soft black leather. Her hands trembled.

She shouldn't be so surprised. She knew that her father had been a student here. That was one of the few facts she did know about him. She didn't know what he'd looked like. (Mom had destroyed the photos years ago, though she had no memory of doing it or why.) Lily didn't even know his real name. (He'd changed his last name to Mom's when they married. Grandpa said her father had had 'issues' with his own family.) He'd died in a car accident a few months after Lily was born.

Hands still shaking, Lily opened the book. She flipped through sketches of trees—everything from bonsai to evergreens, each with a figure beside it. The figures were clearly fantastical. Some had leaves for hair. Others had twigs for arms. She skimmed a chapter entitled 'Powers of a Tree Spirit, Mastery of Plants' and decided her father had been a creative man. Also, kind of a dork.

She didn't see what any of this had to do with a key. Setting her father's book down on the card catalog, she pulled out the W drawer. She rifled through the cards, looking for an author whose last name began with 'Wil' and call numbers that matched the ones on the Unseeing Reader's clue. One minute later, she had it:

Author: Wilson, Woodrow.

Title: The Gargoyles of Princeton: Lessons from the Literate Ape.

'You guys think you're hilarious, don't you?' she muttered. There was no way that Woodrow Wilson, former president of the United States, had written an entire dissertation-length book on gargoyles ... unless he'd been a member of Vineyard Club? Could these books be part of a hundred-plus-year-old in-joke?

She studied the subtitle: Lessons from the Literate Ape. She chewed on her lower lip, thinking. She'd heard that name before. Hadn't the tour guide mentioned a gargoyle called the Literate Ape?

This had to be her next clue.

She couldn't wait to tell Tye.

CHAPTER Three

Lily fled Firestone Library into bright, beautiful, and not-at-all-creepy sunlight. As she emerged, she heard ringing in her ears again—she hadn't realized that it had stopped inside the library. She shook her head as if she could shake out the sound and scanned the plaza for Tye.

She scolded herself for being so eager to find him. He'd joked about rogue book carts, but he hadn't warned her about the bookshelves. She had to remember that, as cute as he might be, he wasn't necessarily on her side.

She spotted him across the plaza. One foot on the chapel steps, he was looking up, talking to someone she couldn't see. He was probably talking about the pathetic high school girl who'd had to be practically hit over the head with the Orange Key Tour clue and who'd nearly had heart failure over a few remote-controlled bookshelves.

Approaching him, she caught a few words: '... old worm ... I don't know why I even try ... certainly not to you ... even they aren't that stupid ...' Oddly, he didn't seem to be talking to anyone. He was focused on the gargoyles above the arch, a ribbon of stone leaves and grapes interspersed with foxes and birds and lizards. She didn't see what was so fascinating about them. The only gargoyle that caught her eye was an S- shaped dragon, curled between the grape leaves and vines. Its curved neck was caught in a stone chain, and it looked out over the plaza with sad puppy-dog eyes.

Coming up behind Tye, she asked, 'What's up with the obsession with the gargoyles here? The tour guide, the Old Boys, you ...'

He spun around so fast that it was nearly a leap. 'Hey! You're back. Great!' He flashed his patented lopsided grin and then quickly guided her by the elbow away from the chapel, as if he were steering her away from a patch of poison ivy. She felt a tingle on her elbow like static electricity.

'Any luck in the library?' Tye asked.

Lily nodded. 'I'm supposed to go to the Literate Ape.'

'Huh,' he said.

She was surprised that the Old Boys hadn't briefed him already. 'That was the clue from the special catalog that the possessed bookshelves guided me to.'

His eyebrows shot up.

'It was very Scooby-Doo.'

He looked blank.

'You know, Scooby, Shaggy, Mystery Machine. 'If it weren't for you meddling kids ...'' She trailed off. Okay, she'd made herself look like enough of a tool. 'Never mind. I, um, have to go find a rock now.'

'He's on Dillon Gym,' Tye said. 'You don't know about the Princeton gargoyles?'

'The true professors of Princeton?' Lily mocked the tour guide. She shook her head. 'What do they have to do with the Key and the Legacy Test?' Come on, she thought, give me a hint! The Old Boys seemed to have a theme here with all the gargoyles, but she didn't see the connection to a key.

'You really don't know,' he said, more to himself than to her. He grinned at her as if she'd done something marvelous. 'And here I thought today was going to be boring.' He clapped a hand on her shoulder, sending tiny tingles down her arm. 'Let's go find some answers.'

He headed for the East Pyne arch and waved again at the Unseeing Reader. Lily glanced up at the gargoyle and wondered if the Old Boys who'd supplied the clue knew about her father's book. She wondered if Tye knew about it. Gathering up her nerve to ask, she followed him through the archway into the ivy-choked courtyard. 'Can I ask you something?'

'Yes, this is my natural hair color.'

She grinned. 'I'm serious.'

'Okay, shoot,' he said, stopping.

Shadowed and cool, the courtyard felt like a secret alcove. She was hyperaware that she was alone with this intense, cool, and intriguing boy and that she had his full attention. The humming-ringing-singing in her ears sounded extra loud. 'Um ...,' she said. 'There were these books in the library....'

'I'm told libraries have such things,' he said solemnly.

She ignored that. 'Different books. Strange books. One of them was by—'

A weight smashed hard into the center of her back. Lily lurched forward and slammed down knees first on the slate flagstones. Pain shot through her knees and up her thighs. All the air whooshed out of her lungs.

'Lily!' Tye yelled as he dove toward her.

She screamed as tiny pricks stabbed into her shoulder. 'Ow, ow, ow—get it off!' Lily swatted at her back, and her hand smacked into leathery skin.

Tye yanked the animal off her back and flung it across the courtyard into the ivy. She heard a smack as it crashed to the ground several yards away. Tye knelt beside her and started swearing. 'Look at me, Lily. Can you focus? It bit you. Oh, shit.' He pressed his fingers to her neck, feeling for her pulse.

Over Tye's shoulder, she saw a ... what the hell was that? Monkeylike, the animal was hairless and green. It wore half-shredded children's clothes draped over its leather body.

'You have bite marks,' Tye said. 'It must have started—'

The creature snarled, exposing sharklike pointed teeth, and then it lurched toward them. 'Behind you!' Lily