He looked down at me. “I’m sorry I hit you. I’m sorry I got upset.”
“Dad wouldn’t listen. That was his fault.”
“He’s horrible and I don’t ever want to go home.”
“Oh God, Ry.” I snuggled him into a hug. “We can’t go down that road. We can’t.” I pulled back and stared into his eyes. “Think about Sevyn and Evyn’s dad. He wasn’t great, but he was important to the story.” I held up Eamon’s copy of Elementia.
“You read it?” His voice quivered. “You understand now?”
“Some,” I admitted. “The rest you can explain to me.” He hugged me all over again, and we walked back to the center of the action. “I have to talk to Cate, Ry. I don’t know what’s going on with Dad, but I’m sure he set something in motion before he left.”
Eamon put a light hand on my back. “Love, I’ve got to find a hot shower.”
“Uh, yeah, you should do that,” I managed.
He grinned like he knew I was picturing him naked. Good Lord. “I’ll come to your trailer later.” He kissed me and walked off, and when I looked down, Ryder was squinting.
“You’ve been kissing Nolan.”
“He’s Eamon to me, Ry.”
“No, he’s Nolan. That makes you Sevyn.”
“Ha!” Apparently there was a conspiracy, but you know what? I knew this reference now, and if I was going to live up to it, I’d have to find some more lightning.
• • •
I knocked on Cate’s door, and she hollered, “Come in, Iris!”
Cate sat in the back, surrounded by script pages and computers.
“How do you always know when it’s me?” I asked, climbing the steps.
“Well, usually I’ve sent for you. But this time I was waiting for you to come to your senses and leave your sulking island.” She paused. “Literally.”
“I wasn’t sulking. I was reading.” I dropped Eamon’s book beside her laptop. She pushed her screen away and picked it up.
“Look at this. I’m telling you, the UK knows how to make a cover. The American cover’s all about grabbing attention, but look at this.” She turned it toward me. “This is a cover to fall in love with and treasure for the rest of your life.”
“It’s Eamon’s.”
“I’m not surprised. I’ve been informed by Shoshanna that you two are embarking on puppy love together.” Her mouth quirked with amusement.
“I am about one puppy joke away from barking at people.”
“All right then.” Her words were light, but I could feel the current underneath them.
“How’s the…boycott?”
“Thirty thousand signatures. If it hits fifty, we’re done.”
I stalked around Cate’s trailer, too angry to be still. “Those idiot Thornians with their tattoos and their cats named after all the characters! They could actually help this fantasy become reality, and yet they’re doing the opposite. Why don’t they want this movie? You’d think they’d die for it.”
“They’re afraid, Iris. Books are endlessly interpretable. Movies are set. The odds that this movie is not what the book means to each one of them is high. Very high.” She sounded like a professor who’d given this class too many times. “That is the vast gamble of movie adaptation.”
I studied the woman I’d grown to respect against my will. “Help me understand?”
She grinned ever so slightly. “Say that the book is a sculpture. You can walk around the story. You can touch it. You can view it up close or far away. That is why people love books. The stories interact with your memories, your experiences. They’re personalized. Movies? Movies are a picture of that same statue. The parameters are set. The characters have defined faces. The scenes artistically rendered to one person’s vision.”
“But your vision for this book is good! So what if some people have to see the book differently? Who cares? It’s a movie! A gateway to my grandmother’s story.”
“Iris.” Cate stood and took my shoulders in both hands. Her face was lined with the kind of exhaustion that kills people, and yet her eyes still held that spark. “We’re moving forward. Hoping for the best. If nothing else goes wrong, we may yet pull off this impossible dream.”
I wanted her to be right, but there was still an ugly fly in the ointment. “My dad—”
“Is an absolute nightmare. I didn’t fully understand your attitude before I talked with him today, and now I understand too well.”
“Did he say anything before he left?”
“Only that he was going to stay in Dublin for the remainder of the shoot. I am to contact him if you guys put one toe out of line. As if I would rat you out to that tyrant.”
“He wants to finish his draft,” I said coolly. “Typical.”
“I don’t think he wants to leave you and your brother, but he sure as hell doesn’t want to stay here either. He’s going to ping around our lights like a moth, I fear.”
Cate really did get my dad; I was impressed.
“You know everything,” I said, but that wasn’t it. “You say everything.”
“Be as sharp as you are, Iris. It’s a lot more fun than acting like you’re catching up. Lead. Be opinionated. Don’t say you’re sorry unless you did something wrong.” She touched the streak of lightning on the Elementia cover in my hands. “That’s what your grandmother’s story gave me. That’s what I hope it gives to its audience. To you. Be your own power source.”
“My dad would love that,” I tried to joke.
“He won’t understand because men don’t have this problem. They grow up learning to think outward. Act on their impulses. Women are taught to think inward, act rarely. Women who don’t stay underground? Well, they have about as easy a time as I’ve had.”
Henrik knocked and opened the door. “Cate, I—” His eyes narrowed on me, and I waited for a Done having a tantrum on your island? remark. “Iris, your dad is an asshat.”
Cate clapped and pointed at Henrik. “See, Iris? Case in point. He never doubted for a
