When Ivy woke up, she was shivering violently and the sheets were damp. Outside the window, the world was coated in white flowers, and someone on the second floor was throwing fistfuls of petals into the air. Ivy decided to go see who was doing this, and also find something to eat because that would surely help her feel better. Getting out of bed was hard. The bed was fighting her, trying to pull her back. Her bones were all bruised, and it seemed like gravity was stronger than usual, like the earth had grown to the size of Jupiter. It occurred to Ivy that she was pretty sick, but any other thoughts about this kept flitting beyond reach and she couldn’t seem to gain on any of them.
It took a while to get up the stairs; she had to keep sitting down to catch her breath. Finally, she emerged into the living room, and all the open space made her feel dizzy, so she sat for a moment at the big table, resting her cheek on the cool surface. A frail whimper leaked out of her mouth. She thought she’d been lonely before, but this kind of loneliness put every other kind to shame. She just wanted someone to put their hand to her forehead, pour her a glass of Coke, put a box of tissues by her bed. Gran had been the one to do it whenever Ivy was sick back home, although it usually took her a few days to be convinced Ivy wasn’t faking. Gran was a terrible nurse—she would forget to make Ivy lunch half the time, and she was stingy with sympathy—but she was a warm body in the house and could be counted on not to let Ivy die.
Why had she come up here? Food. Ivy pushed herself off the bench and went into the kitchen. She surveyed the counter, which was covered with dirty dishes and empty deli containers. The good stuff was long gone, but there was still a loaf of bread somewhere. She’d been eating it for the past couple of days, a couple of slices a day, but she couldn’t remember where she’d left the bag.
She pawed through the dishes and the trash, then opened the fridge and found it in there, a limp plastic bag with two slices of bread inside. Or rather, one slice of bread and one heel, just a shaving of crust. Ivy folded the heel in half and shoved it in her mouth, which was dry and full of sores. She poured a glass of water and did her best to work the bread down her throat. Then she picked up the last piece, which looked comparatively fluffy and sweet, like a slice of cake, and thought about what was next.
That slice of bread was the last of the food. This thought, at least, was coming through the fog like a pair of fast-moving headlights. It was the last of the food, and she was too sick to walk up the hill, and that white stuff wasn’t flower petals, it was snow. Even without the snow, even if it were sunny and seventy-five, she knew she’d never be able to make it up that endless driveway to the road. She could barely make it up a flight of stairs.
Ivy pinched one corner of the bread slice, feeling the fluffiness turn hard, then ripped it away and laid it on her tongue. It didn’t taste sweet; it tasted like everything else these days, like the side of a metal watering can. But it was pulling saliva into her mouth and waking up her brain. She took a big bite from the center of the slice, no crust, and it was like biting a cloud—one minute it was there; the next minute it was gone. She considered the remains of the slice. If she didn’t eat it now, she’d just eat it the next day, so why the hell should she wait? She was going to get better eventually—tomorrow, maybe, or the day after—and then she’d be able to walk to town.
She shoved the whole thing into her mouth and chewed, wishing it really did taste like cake, wishing she could be wrong about the food situation, wishing there was actually a whole loaf of bread and some packages of ham and cheese lost somewhere in the kitchen mess. What did Gran always say? If wishes were horses, something something something. If wishes were horses, she’d kill one and eat it. If wishes were horses, this house would be a hell of a lot messier than it already was. If wishes were horses, she’d race them in the Kentucky Derby and win all that money because Ivy’s wishes were bigger and stronger than anyone else’s, and maybe nobody else would bet on them, but the person who did was going to be in for one hell of a sweet surprise.
8
Mary Ellen headed north along the Schuylkill River, skirting the Main Line, then emerged from a tangle of interstates onto the straight and orderly Blue Route. Traffic was light; she passed Allentown going about eighty miles per hour. The road was pressed into the earth, land bulging up on either side of it, obscuring her view of what was beyond. There was a dusting of snow on the ground, just enough to give the dead grass a white sheen. She rounded a
