Henrik peered at me through darkly tinted glasses. “I’m here to make sure this movie makes sense to people who haven’t memorized the books.”
I liked him immediately. “Not a fantasy fan?”
“I have other allegiances.” He pulled up his shirtsleeve, revealing J. R. R. Tolkien’s stylized initials tattooed on the brown skin of his left forearm. Good Lord, what is it with nerds and their tattoos? “I’m a supporter of the original trilogy.”
“Oh please, Henrik. M. E. Thorne was not a copycat.” Cate seemed to fall headlong into an ongoing argument. “Thorne’s story is about women saving the world. Tolkien went to the George Lucas school of ‘one woman per universe.’”
“Galadriel, Arwen, Éowyn,” Henrik listed.
“Oh? Three is it? Oh, that’s much better. Three women per universe should do the job.”
“Lúthien!” he snapped. “Or how about Haleth the Hunter? She killed thousands of orcs.”
“The Silmarillion characters don’t count,” Cate said. “That’s an entirely different book.”
Ryder was smiling hugely at their debate, and I couldn’t help weighing in too.
“I see Henrik’s point,” I said, enjoying Cate’s growl. “Elves. Magic trees. A world in peril. That all sounds Middle Earth to me.”
Henrik’s satisfied grin was a bit trollish.
“This is anarchy,” Cate said. “First, these fantasies, all of them, draw from The Canterbury Tales. Chaucer is the one who deserves the rights check from Tolkien, Lewis, Thorne, Rowling, et cetera. Secondly”—she turned at me—“how could you not see the genius of your grandmother’s legacy?”
“I haven’t read the books,” I admitted proudly. “I’m—”
“She might be putting on a fair show, Cate,” Eamon butted in, crossing his arms as he turned at me. “Ryder says your da read it to him when he was six. And you’re saying that your da didn’t read it to you as well? I don’t believe it.”
If I thought my face was red when we’d walked in, it was lava now. No, my dad had never read the books to me, and he’d only read them to my brother as part of Ryder’s post-attempted-abduction therapy. My dad’s voice filled my head, louder than usual: Don’t say a word, Iris. These people cannot be reasoned with.
Cate and Eamon left me alone, discussing his elf ears before hauling over a girl who didn’t seem much older than me. Her hair was shaved on one side and twisted into blond-and-pink spirals on the other. She wore fingerless gloves and laughed easily with her director boss. What I wouldn’t give to be more like her. Artsy. Bold. Confident. People didn’t mess with girls who looked like that. They messed with girls who looked like me—long hair without a committed style, enough makeup to seem like no makeup, decent clothes that didn’t flare into any particular style. In short, girls who were a dead ringer for their dead grandmother.
“And this is Iris,” Eamon said. “M. E. Thorne’s granddaughter. She’s delighted to be here.” In my defense, I was scowling long before that introduction.
The girl stuck out her hand. “Roxanne. Makeup artist.” Great. She even had a cool name.
I managed a stiff smile and shook her hand across the tiny table.
“Roxy did my ears,” Eamon said. “And she worked on that Shannara program you were talking about enjoying earlier.” Roxanne beamed; apparently this was not a joke. Eamon’s grin teased. “Lots of elves on that program, Iris?”
“We call them TV shows,” I said. Oh my God, I was going to have to murder Eamon O’Brien, and I’d only just met him. Cate appraised me with a disappointed look, and I didn’t like that either. “Yeah, I guess I only saw the commercials. Looked cool. I’ll have to put it on my watch list,” I added to Roxanne so that I didn’t seem like a complete jerk.
Roxy gave me a half-smile. She knew I wasn’t trying to insult her. She knew Eamon was messing with me. She knew that I had zero interest in being here. And she knew all that because girls don’t get as cool as her without being perceptive about everything.
I made a study of my french fries…chips…whatever…until everyone left me alone. The truth that had taken over my thoughts on the ferry—that this whole production was a lot bigger than I knew—made me scoot my chair closer to Henrik. He hooked an eyebrow at me. “Why was it a bad first day?” I asked. “What went wrong?” Smooth, Iris.
Henrik glared at his notebook and muttered, “Cate films in sequence. She believes it encourages the actors to feel the story, but it causes time constraints. And we only have two weeks to film a month’s worth. We spent all day waiting for the clouds to lift for one shot when we could have set up another day and had it in an hour.”
“We got the shot. Didn’t we, Henrik?” So Cate was listening. He nodded, and she aimed that Irish accent—mildly tuned down after a few decades in California—at me. “Your father sent me an email about you, Iris. He says you can be rather negative.” I bit my tongue, literally. If that wasn’t the pot calling the kettle… “But I bet with a little focus and exposure, we can turn you into a wild-hearted Thornian.”
Ryder laughed hard, coughing on a fry. I thumped his back, smacking hands with Eamon who was also trying to help. I pushed him away. This guy had gotten into my business fast. They all had. “So is this fantasy conversion camp or the set for a major motion picture?” I snarked.
Cate leaned forward. “Maybe it’s both.”
“Iris is a songwriter, Cate,” Eamon interrupted. “She brought her guitar and everything.”
Cate looked too interested, so I tried to head off
