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    The Zilpha Keatley Snyder Treasury Volume Two
    The Zilpha Keatley Snyder Treasury Volume Two
    The Zilpha Keatley Snyder Treasury Volume Two
    Ebook1,461 pages23 hours

    The Zilpha Keatley Snyder Treasury Volume Two

    By Zilpha Keatley Snyder

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    About this ebook

    Nine novels—including The Changeling—from the three-time Newbery Honor author who “led young readers into the wondrous terrain between fantasy and reality” (The Washington Post).
     
    Blending realism and fantasy, Zilpha Keatley Snyder was a master at drawing young readers into mesmerizing worlds. Collected in one volume, here are nine of her most memorable and beloved novels.
     
    One of her best-known books, the Christopher Medal winner The Changeling, follows an unusual friendship between two suburban girls, one of whom may have supernatural abilities. Snyder’s debut novel, Season of Ponies, is a mystical fairy tale about a girl, a magic amulet, and one unforgettable summer.
     
    Take a journey through such extraordinary settings as a rumor-haunted valley in The Ghosts of Stone Hollow and a possessed department store in Eyes in the Fishbowl. Meet a girl who spies on a neighboring family to overcome her own grief in Spyhole Secrets and another who discovers she has inherited psychic power in The Magic Nation Thing.
     
    With stories and characters that continue to endure, Zilpha Keatley Snyder is one of the most revered figures in children’s literature.
     
    This ebook includes The Changeling, Black and Blue Magic, Season of Ponies, The Ghosts of Stone Hollow, Spyhole Secrets, The Birds of Summer, The Magic Nation Thing, Eyes in the Fishbowl, and The Unseen.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Media
    Release dateDec 19, 2017
    ISBN9781504050777
    The Zilpha Keatley Snyder Treasury Volume Two
    Author

    Zilpha Keatley Snyder

    Zilpha Keatley Snyder (b. 1927) is a three-time Newbery Honor–winning author of adventure and fantasy novels for children. Her smart, honest, and accessible narrative style has made her books beloved by generations. When not writing, she enjoys reading and traveling. Snyder lives in Mill Valley, California.     

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      The Zilpha Keatley Snyder Treasury Volume Two - Zilpha Keatley Snyder

      The Zilpha Keatley Snyder Treasury Volume Two

      Zilpha Keatley Snyder

      CONTENTS

      The Changeling

      1

      2

      3

      4

      5

      6

      7

      8

      9

      10

      11

      12

      13

      14

      15

      16

      17

      18

      19

      20

      21

      22

      Black and Blue Magic

      Possibilities

      The Medicine Mess

      Mike Wong

      Harry to the Rescue

      Hot Water and Hysterics

      The Marriage Plan

      Mr. Mazzeeck

      The Sword and Other Problems

      A Midnight Visitor

      A Strange Gift

      The Last Possibility

      Magic and Some Black and Blue

      Harry’s Flying Suit

      Monkey Island

      A Little More Believing

      An Angel! For Pete Squeaks!

      Days that Flew By

      An Angel for Tommy

      The Leotard Mystery

      And Now for Olive

      A Mummy from Mars

      Eavesdropping—The Hard Way

      Good-by Magic—Good-by Black and Blue

      Season of Ponies

      A Morning of Hope

      An Afternoon of Sorrow

      A Magic Evening

      Pamela Makes a Choice

      A Warning

      A Pale Pink Clue

      In a Forest Clearing

      A Glimpse of Fear

      On a Stormy Night

      In the Old Granary

      Shadow Glen

      Fear Comes Closer

      A Puzzling Surprise

      The Circus Game

      In the Pig Woman’s Swamp

      The Pig Woman

      Back to Oak Farm

      An Unexpected Visitor

      Old Questions Answered

      Endings and Beginnings

      The Ghosts of Stone Hollow

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      Chapter Eight

      Chapter Nine

      Chapter Ten

      Chapter Eleven

      Chapter Twelve

      Chapter Thirteen

      Chapter Fourteen

      Chapter Fifteen

      Chapter Sixteen

      Chapter Seventeen

      Chapter Eighteen

      Spyhole Secrets

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      Chapter 8

      Chapter 9

      Chapter 10

      Chapter 11

      Chapter 12

      Chapter 13

      Chapter 14

      Chapter 15

      Chapter 16

      Chapter 17

      Chapter 18

      Chapter 19

      Chapter 20

      Chapter 21

      Chapter 22

      Chapter 23

      Chapter 24

      Chapter 25

      Chapter 26

      The Birds of Summer

      1

      2

      3

      4

      5

      6

      7

      8

      9

      10

      11

      12

      13

      14

      15

      The Magic Nation Thing

      1

      2

      3

      4

      5

      6

      7

      8

      9

      10

      11

      12

      13

      14

      15

      16

      17

      18

      19

      20

      Eyes in the Fishbowl

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      Chapter 8

      Chapter 9

      Chapter 10

      Chapter 11

      Chapter 12

      Chapter 13

      Chapter 14

      Chapter 15

      The Unseen

      Foreword

      1

      2

      3

      4

      5

      6

      7

      8

      9

      10

      11

      12

      13

      14

      15

      16

      17

      18

      19

      20

      21

      22

      23

      24

      25

      26

      A Biography of Zilpha Keatley Snyder

      The Changeling

      To changelings I have known

      Contents

      1

      2

      3

      4

      5

      6

      7

      8

      9

      10

      11

      12

      13

      14

      15

      16

      17

      18

      19

      20

      21

      22

      1

      MARTHA ABBOTT WOKE UP on the seventh day of April and sat straight up in bed with her eyes wide open. That, in itself, was significant. As long as she could remember she had always awakened slowly and cautiously, testing yesterday gingerly with the tip of memory, before taking the plunge into cold bright consciousness. But on that April morning she had no choice. Something had reached deep into her dream and jolted her awake—and then quickly faded, leaving behind only four definite words. Something’s going to happen!

      Not that she hadn’t had that feeling before—that knowing that something terribly good, or bad, was about to happen—but never anything so strong and certain. Never strong enough to shake her awake and then leave her holding her breath, paralyzed with expectation.

      She was still sitting, staring, numb with wonder, when suddenly her eyes focused on the mirror across the room, and the spell was broken for the moment. After the fraction of a second it took to recognize herself, she laughed. There she was, stiff as a hinge, arms straight at her sides, long hair wisping across her face, and her eyes round and blank as two daisies. Blinking, she smiled, imagining daisy petal lashes, and climbed out of bed, almost forgetting about the warning.

      But it came back, and it kept coming back. It would sneak out, sudden and stabbing, and then fade again quickly when Martha tried to hang on long enough to examine it. The second time was only a few minutes later, while she was brushing her hair by the window, and watching the sunlight turn the long straight strands from straw to gold. Something’s going to happen! This time it shivered down her back, leaving a fading shadow that felt very much like fear.

      It happened, next, on the way to school, Roosevelt High School where Martha was a Sophomore. She had just turned a corner when there on the sidewalk was a bird. It was a brown bird, a perfectly wild brown bird, but it went on sitting still while Martha bent down and picked it up. Of course, it did seem to be a very young bird, almost a baby, but it wasn’t just that it was too young to fly. Because, after it sat in Martha’s hand for a moment, it flew away. With just a very gentle boost from Martha, it flew away to a low branch of a nearby tree. It sat on the low limb, looking down at Martha, blinking its round black eyes, and suddenly, there it was again. Something’s going to happen!

      Nothing very special occurred at school, but that was to be expected. School seldom had the right atmosphere for significant messages. But one thing did happen. During drama class, Rufus gave Martha a flower. Rufus, who sat next to Martha in drama, was a special friend, and actually the fact that he gave her a flower was not so unusual. He often brought her little things as a kind of joke—a crazy little toy, or something funny from the newspaper, or a flower.

      It was the kind of flower, this time, that made it matter. For Rufus had dropped into her lap a dark pink blossom of oleander.

      That’s oleander, Martha whispered.

      Oh yeah? Rufus said. You couldn’t prove it by me. It’s that stuff that grows down by the highway.

      It’s poisonous, Martha said.

      It is? Rufus said, almost out loud, reaching to take it back.

      But only if you eat it. Martha kept it closed in her hand.

      Well okay, don’t eat it, Rufus said.

      Martha nodded. She twirled the blossom in her fingers and leaned toward Rufus to whisper, That’s me all right, beautiful but deadly.

      Rufus snorted, and then they both sobered because Miss Walters was frowning in their direction.

      Of course, the beautiful but deadly part had only been kidding, but oleander had been very significant to Martha once, and Rufus couldn’t possibly have known about it. Rufus was a city boy, and that was probably the reason he didn’t even know that oleander was poisonous. But the reason he didn’t know the rest of it, was simply that he hadn’t known Martha long enough. Only since September, and now it was April, and during that time Martha had never told Rufus anything at all about oleander.

      The final warning occurred while Martha was on her way home from school. In a way it was the strangest, although Martha didn’t realize that until much later. It happened while Martha was waiting for the light to change at an intersection in front of the school. Suddenly a voice said, Martha? Is it Martha Abbott? and there in a dusty station wagon was Mrs. Smith.

      In spite of her ordinary name, Mrs. Smith was one of the most extraordinary people Martha had ever known. To say that she was the wife of the man who owned the riding stables where Martha had once spent a great deal of time, didn’t begin to explain who Mrs. Smith really was, or why she had been important to Martha. But all that had been several years before, and it was a long time since Martha had seen her.

      Is it really you? Mrs. Smith called, and Martha ran out to the window of her car.

      It’s Martha, she said. Hi, Mrs. Smith. She stuck her head in the window and said it again. Hi, Mrs. Smith.

      Mrs. Smith had a strange way of looking at people, a deep concentrated look, as if she could see things other people missed.

      You’ve changed a great deal, she said.

      I know, Martha said. I’m not so fat and ugly.

      Mrs. Smith smiled. You’re very beautiful, but that’s not what I meant. Have you heard anything from— But the light changed, and Mrs. Smith motioned Martha away and said, Scoot now. Call me someday, and Martha had to run back to the curb. She didn’t really think anymore about the meeting until after dinner much later.

      Dinner that night at number two Castle Court in Rosewood Manor Estates was just the same as always. Everyone was there, at least all of the Abbotts except Tom and Cath Abbott, Martha’s older brother and sister, who were away at college. The Abbotts present, besides Martha, included her father, Thomas Abbott, Junior; her mother, Louise Abbott; and her grandmother, Adelaide Abbott. Thomas Abbott was a lawyer, of the kind that mostly defends businesses against taxes. Louise Abbott was a housewife and didn’t work, but she kept almost busier than if she did—at things like volunteer jobs and golf and staying very beautiful. Grandmother Abbott spent most of her time traveling and gardening and going to garden clubs, and she ordinarily only stayed at number two Castle Court during the best gardening months. The rest of the time her garden, which was very beautiful and elaborate, was Martha’s responsibility.

      The conversation that night followed the usual pattern. Martha’s father talked about an especially difficult client, and her mother talked about her golf score, and Grandmother Abbott talked about the Hollandaise Sauce, which she had made herself because Martha’s mother had been so late getting home. Martha, wearing her usual smoke screen smile, was not really listening, when suddenly one sentence ripped through the screen and whirled everything into chaos.

      Oh, by the way, her father said, Joe Peters says the Carsons have shown up again. Joe was up in Edgeport today, and on his way back he saw them from the freeway. They’re moving back into the old Montoya house again. I was beginning to think we’d seen the last of that bunch around here. How long has it been since they left the last time? Must be two or three years.

      Two years, a strange voice said, which Martha hardly recognized as her own. A little more than two years. And even while she was answering, another part of her mind was thinking, So that was it. So that was what was going to happen.

      Martha’s father looked at her as if it had just occurred to him that she might have a particular interest in what he had said. You didn’t hear from your friend, did you? he asked. Did she let you know she was coming back?

      No, Martha said. I didn’t hear from her. Was Mr. Peters sure? How could he tell for sure it was the Carsons, all the way from the freeway? He couldn’t recognize faces from there.

      No, I suppose not, but Joe said he saw a bunch of people unloading what looked like the same old red truck they used to drive. Besides, who else would live in that old shell of a house? It must have been the Carsons, all right.

      It must have been, Martha said to herself. It must have been.

      Well, Martha’s grandmother said, but not so much to Martha as to her mother, I suppose now we’ll be seeing a great deal of that Carson girl again. What was that child’s name?

      There was an undercurrent in what Grandmother Abbott was saying, and everyone at the table knew what it was. She was saying that she had always advised against allowing Martha to spend so much time with the Carson girl. She was reminding them all of the things she had always said, but Martha, for one, didn’t need to be reminded. She already remembered all the things Grandmother had said on the subject. Things like, I can’t understand why you permit it, Louise. It’s not as if there weren’t any other children her age in the neighborhood. There’s that lovely little Peters girl right next door, and the Sutter children just down the block. And it’s not just the child’s unfortunate background. It’s more than that. There’s a strangeness about her—

      Martha remembered hearing Grandmother Abbott say that more than once. There’s a strangeness about her. A strangeness—. Suddenly an interior explosion shook Martha so hard that her smoke screen smile was blown away and she had to bow her head quickly to hide her face. Staring down at her plate she tried to explore the damage and wound up lost in a rushing tide of memories. Above and around her the conversation went on as if from a great distance.

      Dinner finally ended and Martha, having cleared the table, was free to leave. Her father had made his regular retreat to the study with the paper, and in the kitchen Louise and Adelaide’s regular polite argument was covering such things as proper companions and interfering in your children’s lives. Martha took her warm car coat from the hall closet and went out the double front doors of number two Castle Court into the April evening.

      Martha walked uphill against a soft April wind, toward the unsubdivided green at the top of Rosewood Hills. Castle Court, which was formed by a cul-de-sac at the end of Castle Drive, was at the very top of Rosewood Manor Estates, so Martha had only to walk through the vacant lot that separated the Abbotts’ house from the Peters’ next door, and she was on a narrow foot trail that left suburbia behind. The path climbed steeply, zig-zagging through deep spring grass, and passing outcroppings of jagged turreted rock and scattered oak trees and madrone. The sky was just beginning to turn pink with sunset, but Martha could probably have climbed the narrow trail almost as well in complete darkness. All the hundreds of times her feet had climbed that path, walked it, run it, skipped or slid or scampered it, had printed a pattern somewhere in her mind. And now her feet followed that pattern automatically while her mind raced ahead, and back, rushed forward excitedly—and stopped—looking back longingly at yesterday and the day before.

      Almost at the ridge of Rosewood Hills the path passed a small grove of old trees known as Bent Oaks, but Martha went on, straight up to where the path topped the crest of the hill and started down the other side. There, at the highest point, you could see beyond the northern slope of Rosewood Hills and catch a glimpse of a huge old ruin of a house. Half buried in orchard, the Montoya house was further hidden by the dark sweeping shadow of the freeway, where it dropped on a high overpass, down from a deep cut in the Rosewood ridge to narrow away into the distance.

      Where Martha stood she could just make out part of the roof and upper story of the house, but that was enough to tell her that it was true. The Carsons had come back. Light was glowing in some of the upper windows for the first time in more than two years.

      For a long time Martha stood looking down the dark north side of the hill. Below her the path quickly disappeared in the shadow of oak trees, and further down she knew it wound tunnel-like, under heavy brush, and then through the old plum orchard until it reached the house. Martha had been down that path once—only once. All the other times she had waited, as she would wait tonight, at Bent Oaks Grove.

      The wind at the crest was not very cold, but Martha found that she was shivering. She turned back, and a few yards down the hill she took the turnoff to Bent Oaks. The trees of the grove had grown up among a very large outcropping of jagged boulders, and the path entered between two turrets of stone, like a narrow gateway between tall towers.

      Stepping back into Bent Oaks Grove was like stepping back through time—two years of it. It was a jarring step—like the one that surprises you at the bottom of a dark staircase, when you think you’ve already reached the floor. Martha stood stock still, while bits and pieces of shaken up memories whirled through her mind. Then she moved forward.

      The grove closed around her. Growing so near the crest of the ridge, the old trees were exposed to the full force of the wind, so that they had been bent in places almost to the ground. Some of the branches, leaning away from the wind, had grown in great rolling twists and curves only a few feet above the hillside. The huge gateway boulders on the downward side had caught years and years of dead leaves and eroded soil, until the floor of the grove had leveled. Scattered around this flat area, small outcroppings of rock jutted up to form almost perfect chairs and tables, or mysterious monoliths and sacred altars, depending on who was using them. On the upward slope, a dugout area under a slanting rock made a shelter, a wide and shallow cave, and inside there was a rough wooden floor raised about a foot above the ground like a stage. At the edge of the stage a narrow path through a crevice led upward steeply to a ledge above the cave.

      Once on the ledge Martha stood for a moment before she turned to climb on up the hill. Then she scrambled over boulders and pushed her way through underbrush until she came to a place where a flat rock covered a small crevice. Pushing aside the rock she pulled out a rough wooden box. Inside the wooden box, wrapped in a faded mildewed quilt, was another box—a metal one this time, a fishing tackle box.

      Taking the metal box with her, Martha climbed back down to the ledge and from there by the crevice stairway to the stage below. The hinges of the metal box were so crusted with rust that she had to hit them sharply with a stone before the lid would open—but when it did the past sprang out at Martha like the creatures from Pandora’s box. Swarms and clouds of memories rushed upwards from every object her fingers touched.

      There was a peacock feather, a small leather-covered notebook, a ring box holding an odd-shaped amber stone, a tiny silver bell, some matches and pieces of candle in a glass jar, two horsehair rings, one carved ivory chopstick, a small crumbling bouquet of dead flowers, a large crystal doorknob set in a base of clay, and a yellowed envelope containing a photograph.

      It took a long time to lay each object and its memories back in place, and when she had finally finished, Martha closed the box and with it beside her, she sat down on the edge of the stage. She pulled her legs up under her skirt, wrapped her arms around her knees and began to wait.

      As she waited she began to say, Ivy, Ivy, Ivy, letting the sound blend into the rising voice of the night wind. It was not loud enough for a call, or even an exclamation. After a while it began to seem more like a question.

      2

      IVY CARSON WAS SEVEN when she first came to Rosewood Hills. She was too little for seven and wispy thin, with a small dark face that triangled from high cheekbones to a pointed chin. There was really very little of her to notice, except for her hair and eyes. She had wild hair, thick and too curly and almost never combed. It foamed in tangled curls inches thick around her head, and usually halfway covered her face. She had a habit of sticking out her lower lip and blowing upward when she especially wanted to see something, to get the hair away from her eyes.

      You noticed her eyes, too, right away, even though you could barely see them through the curly thicket of hair. They were strangely beautiful, huge and dark and set in a heavy fringe of lashes, like two great glowing jewels in a skimpy little setting.

      The next thing you noticed was the way she moved, as if her bones were lighter than air, or as if she had somehow managed to get herself immune to the law of gravity. That was all you’d see unless you got to know her well, but then, you also discovered that Ivy was not afraid of anything—at least not anything that you’d expect when you were seven, like the dark, or high places, or dangerous people or monsters.

      Martha Abbott, that same year, was a little fat for a seven-year-old, and her straight pale hair was cut very short, because she sometimes cried when it was combed. At home she had, for some time, been known as Marty Mouse, because her new front teeth were coming in too far out, and because she was very easy to frighten. At school Martha’s classmates described her as the quiet fat one, and her teacher said, a sweet child but an awful daydreamer.

      That year, in the second grade, Martha had already heard quite a bit about the Carsons. Everybody had. For one thing their names were often in the paper—but not in the society pages, where other names familiar to the Abbotts were sometimes mentioned. The Carsons were usually written about under such headings as YOUTH ARRESTED FOR BICYCLE THEFT or TEENAGE BURGLARY RING BOOKED. Parents in Rosewood Manor read the articles and shook their heads and asked their children if there were any Carsons in their rooms at school.

      Most of the children who went to Rosewood School lived right in Rosewood Manor Estates, but not the Carsons, of course. The Carsons attended Rosewood when they lived, from time to time, on the north side of the hills in an old wreck of a house that was known as the Old Montoya Mansion. There was a New Montoya Mansion some miles away where the real Montoyas lived. The real Montoyas were what Grandmother Abbott called a very old family. People said that the Old Mansion still belonged to the Montoyas, although they had left it long before when the freeway overpass was built almost over its roof. The shade trees and lawns and garages and stables had been torn out so that an orchard could be planted right up to its windowsills, but the house itself had been left standing. People said that was because poor Mrs. Carson had been a Montoya before she married, and even though she was what Grandmother Abbott called a disgrace to her good name, the house had been left for her to use for as long as she lived. So the Carsons came and went, leaving Rosewood when the trouble they were always in got particularly bad—and coming back when things had blown over.

      All the Carsons seemed to be forever in trouble, and it was possible to hear all sorts of rumors about what kind of trouble. Younger Rosewood kids liked to scare each other by guessing murder and kidnapping, and slightly older ones thought it might be smuggling or piracy. But when Martha asked her father about it, his answer wasn’t quite that exciting.

      Mr. Abbott said that Monty Carson seemed to have a weakness for dishonesty in a small way, and bad luck in a big way. Like marrying for money and then getting nothing but an old wreck of a house, or buying large quantities of merchandise at auctions or bankruptcy sales and then not being able to sell them. And once he had started tearing the insides out of the old mansion to turn it into a roadhouse, and after half the work was done he found he couldn’t get a permit. Of course, it was true that Monty Carson had been in jail at least a couple of times, but Martha’s father said he thought it was for bad debts or receiving stolen property, instead of the kinds of things the kids in Rosewood like to gossip about.

      There were lots of Carson children, and there had been years when there seemed to be one in almost every grade at Rosewood School, but by the time Martha was in second grade, there was only one left—a boy named Jerry who was in fifth grade with Martha’s brother, Tom.

      But then one day, a few weeks after school started, there was a new girl in Martha’s room, and it turned out that she was a Carson, too. Martha remembered exactly how it happened.

      The class had been working quietly, heads down—it was Mrs. Morris’s second grade, and Mrs. Morris was very particular about quietness—when suddenly the door opened and a loud clear voice said, Hello, is this the second grade? Everyone turned, and there stood a very small girl almost completely hidden under clothes and hair. A large dress, much too long and too wide, covered the newcomer almost from the ankles up to where the hair took over. Martha glanced at Mrs. Morris, expecting her to say something about using a good classroom voice because the voice from the door had been very loud; but Mrs. Morris must have been too startled, for once, to think about such things.

      For an uncertain moment Mrs. Morris said nothing at all, and then she said, Hello in a surprised tone of voice. After another pause she asked, Are you a Carson? Mrs. Morris had been at Rosewood School a long time and she’d been through a lot of Carsons, but even so she seemed unsure. The new girl was dressed like a Carson, and she looked a little like one, too. All the Carsons were dark with heavy curly hair, high cheekbones and wide mouths. Most of them were also rather large and blunt looking. This new girl looked like a Carson seen through the wrong end of a telescope.

      I’m Ivy, the new girl said. Ivy Carson.

      Are you sure you belong in this room, in second grade? Mrs. Morris asked. She was probably thinking that since she had never seen Ivy at school before, she must be just beginning.

      Oh yes, Ivy said. I’m all finished with first grade. I got first grade all learned down at Harley’s Crossing where I used to live with my Aunt Evaline. I usually live with my Aunt Evaline, only she’s been sick so I came to live here ’til she’s better. It’s all written down about my school and everything on this paper.

      She left the doorway and toured around the classroom on her way to the teacher’s desk, looking around her at everything and even stopping to peer into the aquarium on the way. When she skipped up to the teacher’s desk, Martha noticed, for the first time, Ivy’s way of walking—a kind of weightless skimming, like a waterbug on the surface of a pond. While Mrs. Morris looked at her papers, Ivy turned around and looked at the other kids, and that impressed Martha, too. Martha could barely stand to face all those eyes at once, and she’d known most of them all her life. But the new girl looked around, blew the hair out of her eyes and smiled, and a lot of the class smiled back. In second grade some of the kids at Rosewood School could still enjoy the novelty of someone new and different without feeling they ought to punish them for it.

      Martha didn’t really meet Ivy right away, because when the teacher asked for a volunteer to show the new girl around, Martha was too shy to raise her hand; but after a while Ivy got around to discovering Martha. If she hadn’t, they might never have gotten together, because in those days Martha would never have made the first move toward someone new.

      It happened one day when Martha was late going out for recess. She started down an empty hallway, but when she turned the corner, there was Ivy sitting on a railing. She was talking to somebody—only there wasn’t anybody there. Martha was embarrassed, and she just kept on walking, trying to pretend she hadn’t noticed. She was almost close enough to touch when Ivy said, Hi.

      Martha jumped and mumbled and kept on walking. Ivy jumped down from the railing and ran after her.

      You’re Martha, Ivy said.

      Martha nodded. How did you know?

      Ivy screwed up her face, eyes squeezed shut as if she were concentrating. I think it just came to me. She opened her eyes. I saw you, and I just thought ‘there’s Martha.’ But maybe I heard the teacher say it. I’m Ivy.

      I know.

      Did you just hear me talking to someone?

      Martha nodded uncertainly. Ivy nodded back. Her eyes were dark gray, a kind of smoky black, and they stared without blinking. Martha started squirming. Finally Ivy said, I was talking to Nicky. He’s a friend of mine.

      Nicky? Martha said, looking back along the hall.

      Well, his name is really Red Eagle, but I call him Nicky for short. He doesn’t mind. She leaned forward and said more softly, He’s an Indian.

      An Indian? Martha said in a squeaky voice, and she leaned around Ivy to look more carefully down the hall.

      Umhum, Ivy said. But he’s just a small one. She held out her hand. About this big.

      Martha looked carefully along the railing and up and down the empty corridor. There still wasn’t anybody there, but she only nodded with a nervous smile.

      I’ve been bringing him to school with me because he’s lonesome for Harley’s Crossing. That’s where I came from, too. But most of the time I don’t talk to him when other people are around because they don’t like it that they can’t see him. Ivy’s smile seemed to invite Martha to agree that that was a silly attitude.

      Can you see him? Martha ventured cautiously.

      Ivy looked down the railing. Not exactly, right now. Sometimes I can, though. And I always know where he is, even when I can’t see him.

      Martha was beginning to have a strange excited feeling. I—I—had a—uh, friend like that once, she said. Only he was a lion. A great big lion, but very friendly. He used to sleep on my bed and walk around with me sometimes, mostly when it was dark. And I wasn’t the least bit afraid of the dark when he was there.

      Ivy stuck out her lip and blew upwards at her hair. Then she pushed it back with both hands, looking at Martha very hard.

      A lion, she said. A lion is a very good thing to have. You were lucky.

      I was lucky, Martha said. For just a moment she could remember so well that she could almost see the huge tawny face of her lion and feel his warm strong back under her hand, the way she used to feel it when she walked down the dark hall to the bathroom.

      Don’t you ever see him anymore? Ivy asked.

      The lion faded, and Martha shrugged. Oh well, I don’t play that kind of game anymore.

      Why not?

      Well, because I’m not afraid of the dark anymore— Martha started, but then she stopped. After a moment she went on, —at least, not very. Besides everybody teased me. And my mother told people about it at parties and things. She’d tell all about Marty’s imaginary lion, and everyone would laugh. Things like that.

      Ivy nodded. What was his name—your lion?

      Martha hung her head. It was—well, I just called him Lion.

      Okay, Ivy said. Let’s go see if you can find Lion again. Do you think you could if we both looked? Together?

      I—I don’t know, Martha said. Then something she’d been holding back wavered and slipped away. Feeling daring she said, Maybe we could.

      Ivy looked at Martha thoughtfully before she looked back down the hallway. Martha’s eyes followed her gaze.

      There, Ivy said, can you see Nicky now?

      Martha looked very carefully. Maybe I can, she said slowly, and then louder, Yes, I think I can, just a little. Does he have feathers?

      Ivy nodded. I thought you could, she said.

      Martha looked until he was very plain—a smallish Indian with feathers in his hair, sitting there quietly on the railing. Hello Nicky, she said. Then she looked back at Ivy and—at the very same instant—they both laughed.

      They started off then, looking for Lion, and afterwards Martha always remembered how excited she’d felt—as if she’d already found Lion again, or something even better.

      3

      FROM THE TIME THEY went looking for Lion, Martha and Ivy were together a part of almost every day, in spite of the problems that arose. There were problems, and one of the first ones started because of Martha’s sister, Catherine. That year, the year that Martha and Ivy were in second grade, Cath was in sixth grade, and Tom, Martha’s brother, was in fifth. Cath Abbott was always the prettiest and smartest girl in her class, and she had dozens of friends, but not any best friend, so it was hard for her to understand about Martha and Ivy. She complained about them quite a bit that year.

      Of course, Cath usually had something to complain about. The Abbotts sometimes joked about Cath being a complainer. Mr. Abbott said that Cath had a great many talents and complaining was certainly one of them. And there’s no use trying to shut her up until she’s made her point, he said. I guess she gets that from her lawyer father, he said, rumpling Cath’s blond hair.

      When Martha’s father said that, her mother laughed coolly. Well, I have to agree that a tendency to complain runs in that side of the family. Martha’s father didn’t laugh, and Martha had a notion that Grandmother Abbott wouldn’t have laughed either if she’d been there.

      Anyway, Martha and Ivy were one of Cath’s favorite complaints for a while. For instance, one night at dinner, not too long after Martha and Ivy had met, Cath said, Mom, I wish you’d do something about Martha. She and that friend of hers are always doing the nuttiest things at school. And everybody knows she’s my sister. It’s really embarrassing.

      What kind of things? Mrs. Abbott asked.

      Well, today they were running up and down behind the backstop when the sixth grade was out for P.E., and they were jumping into the air and flapping their arms and making squeaking noises. I just about died. Everyone was laughing at them.

      Everyone looked at Martha. Tom grinned at her and said, What were you doing, Marty? Being Superman? I used to do that, Cath. I remember playing Superman with Clay Sutter when I was real little. He put out his arms and pretended to soar across the table. Marty the Supermouse to the rescue, he said.

      Cath grinned reluctantly, and asked, What were you doing, Marty?

      We were being the flying monkeys in the Wizard of Oz.

      See, Cath moaned. Flying monkeys, right out in front of all my friends.

      Well, I think that’s understandable, Mrs. Abbott said. Children Martha’s age often play make-believe games. After all she’s only seven years old.

      Well I didn’t, Cath said, And the rest of the second grade doesn’t do things like that. At least not right out in public. And Martha never did, either, until she started playing with that Ivy. Besides, Mom, that Ivy’s a Carson, did you know that? I thought you and Dad didn’t want us to play with those Carson kids.

      Mom looked at Dad as if she wanted him to say something, but he only shrugged his shoulders and went on eating his dinner. Grandmother Abbott wasn’t there, or she certainly would have had something to say. As it was, it was left up to Mom, and it was easy to see that what Dad wouldn’t say, or the way he wouldn’t say it made Mom angry. She smiled a hard sharp smile at Dad before she said, in her silkiest voice, "I didn’t exactly say that, Cath dear. As I recall it was your father, and your grandmother, I might add, who thought it wasn’t a good idea when Tom brought that big Carson boy home last year."

      Well, what do you think, Dad? About Martha and this Ivy Carson?

      Mr. Abbott sighed, As I see it, Cath, he said, this is a slightly different situation. The Carson boy was quite a bit older than Tom, and he’d been in some trouble around the neighborhood. Besides Tom had dozens of friends to choose from. He didn’t need to choose a boy who—

      Jerry’s all right, Tom interrupted. And he’s in the same grade as I’m in.

      "But he is older, dear, Mrs. Abbott said. I don’t really think a little girl like Ivy is anything to worry about. Besides I understand she lives with her aunt most of the time. It’s quite likely she’ll be going back to her aunt’s soon, and the problem will solve itself."

      No, she’s not! No she’s not! Martha yelled suddenly, and everyone stared at her in astonishment.

      Marty! they said. Don’t speak to your mother in that tone of voice. Marty. I’m amazed at you.

      They were amazed because nobody yelled in the Abbott family—and especially not when they were fighting. The rest of the Abbotts fought quietly and politely by using words that said one thing and meant another. It was a dangerous game with rules that Martha could never understand, and so long before she had started crying instead.

      She cried that day. When everyone turned on her in amazement, she burst into tears and dashed from the room, headed in the direction of her favorite crying-place. No one was in the least surprised at that.

      In those days, Martha was known as a champion crybaby. She knew that a crybaby wasn’t considered a good thing to be, but since she was one, she made the most of it. Not that she ever tried to start crying; but once she had gotten started, she put everything she had into it. The size and wetness of Marty’s tears was a favorite family joke.

      Oh, oh, get out your water wings. There she goes again.

      Good night, Marty, what are you bawling for? I hardly touched you. Now cut it out before you drown yourself.

      Marty’s crying again. Every hour on the hour. Just like Old Faithful.

      Martha had begun by crying anytime and anyplace, but after everyone got to talking so much about it, she had taken to doing most of her crying in one particular place. That was in a small luggage closet behind a larger closet. Martha had discovered she could push a tunnel-like passage among stacks of suitcases, to a low spot under the eaves behind a large steamer trunk. After she’d padded the spot with a favorite old quilt, it made a safe and comfortable hideaway for crying or hiding.

      After a while, of course, Cath had discovered the hideaway and told the rest of the family, and it became another family joke. Marty’s Mousehole it was called. The rest of the Abbotts seemed to think it was just another of Marty’s imaginative games, but it had never seemed like a game to Martha. As it turned out, that evening when Martha yelled at everyone before she started crying was just about the last time she ever used the Mousehole.

      With Ivy around, Martha had less and less time for hiding and for crying. Ivy changed a lot of things for Martha, and time was one of the most important. Before Ivy came to Rosewood Hills, Martha had never paid much attention to time, because there was always more of it than she knew what to do with. All the rest of the Abbotts kept very careful track of time, and they were very particular about what they did with it. "No, I just don’t have the time today, they would say, or You know that Tuesdays at 3:00 is my time for such and such."

      Martha didn’t keep a schedule, but if she had there wouldn’t have been much on it besides school, and perhaps working in Grandmother’s garden. The other things Martha did, such as eating and sleeping and reading and daydreaming, were not the kinds of things that had to be scheduled, and there was always more than enough time to do them in.

      But time began to seem much shorter after Ivy came. There was never enough of it for all the things they wanted to do.

      4

      THERE WAS NEVER ENOUGH time for Martha and Ivy, and for a while places were a problem, too. When they first met, Ivy occasionally went home with Martha after school, but almost from the beginning there seemed to be trouble. There was, for example, the time they bathed the ducks.

      It started on the way home from school one day when Ivy happened to find a broken twig shaped like a long thin slingshot.

      Look, Martha, she said. It’s a divining rod.

      A what? Martha asked.

      A divining rod, Ivy said. It’s a special kind of magic stick. You hold it by the two short ends like this, and the other end points the way to water for a well or sometimes to treasure. My Aunt Evaline showed me how to do it. Ivy turned around in a circle, stopped for a moment, and then began to walk. Come on, she called. It’s pointing.

      Martha knew there wouldn’t be anyone home at her house for quite a while to worry about where she was, so she ran after Ivy and the pointing stick. It led them across the highway and into the slough.

      It must be a water-finding one, Martha said. There’s lots of water down here.

      Well, maybe, Ivy said. But I think it’s another kind. Some of them find gold mines, or oil wells, or pirate treasure. Maybe there’s a sunken treasure in the slough.

      Some kids say there’s quicksand in the slough, Martha said uneasily. When they reached the reed-covered spongy ground she began to walk gingerly, gasping whenever her feet seemed to be sinking a little. Mud began to ooze up around the tops of her shoes. Ahead of her, Ivy walked lightly, holding the rod in front of her with both hands. They kept going on, through softer and stickier mud, until they reached the bank of the river that flowed through the center of the slough.

      Hey, look, Ivy said suddenly, and as Martha slogged up alongside she could see that everything was black. They had come onto a finger of stagnant backwater, branching off from the main course of the river, and the surface of the backwater was covered by a thick coating of heavy black oil. It must be an oil well finding rod. Look, we’ve discovered an oil well.

      Martha had learned about discovering oil wells from a movie on T.V. I guess that means we’ll be millionaires, she said.

      I guess so, Ivy said, but then she added, oh, oh, look. She was pointing to where a large rusty oil drum, at the edge of the bank, was oozing its contents onto the water.

      It probably just fell off one of those barges, Martha said.

      Ivy nodded. Oh, well, she said. They probably wouldn’t let us be millionaires, anyway. You probably have to have a license or something. Besides, I don’t much like oil wells. I’d rather find a treasure.

      Martha was just starting to agree when suddenly she said, Oh, and jumped and grabbed Ivy so hard she almost made them both sit down in the mud. Something had moved in the reeds just a few inches from her foot.

      That was how they found the ducks. There were seven of them, a mother, a father, and five partly-grown babies. They were all covered with a thick scum of oil, which made their feathers stick together so they couldn’t fly. They all seemed very sick.

      So Ivy caught the ducks, one by one, splashing after them through the mud and water, while Martha held the ones that were already caught. After the fourth one, she couldn’t hold anymore in her arms, and she had to sit on the rest like a mother hen. That is, she didn’t actually sit on them, but she squatted down so that her full skirt, a new wool skirt with lots of pleats, reached down to the ground. Packed in under the skirt, the oily ducks seemed to stick together and stop trying to get away.

      When the last duck was caught, Martha and Ivy divided them up and put them into baskets, formed by holding up the fronts of their skirts, and started for Martha’s house. On the way home Martha did notice the mud and the oil, and the smell, too; but Ivy kept saying that the ducks would die if the oil wasn’t taken off right away, and that seemed much more important.

      As soon as they reached number two Castle Court, they started scrubbing the ducks in the stationary tub in the laundry room. Almost immediately they discovered that it took two girls to hold and scrub one wild duck. Afterwards Martha could never quite remember how they happened to put the other six ducks in the wicker toy chest in her bedroom, except that the Abbotts’ just didn’t seem to have any very good place for storing oily ducks.

      It wouldn’t have been quite so bad if the ducks hadn’t managed to bump the toy chest lid open—but unfortunately, they did. The result was pretty awful. Fifth grade boys aren’t particularly sensitive to dirty messes; but when Tom, who was the next one home, looked into Martha’s bedroom, he was very impressed.

      When Martha opened the door to show him the nearly scrubbed ducks, the father duck was sitting on top of the dressing table mirror and two of the children were huddled in the middle of the bed. On the pale blue and white color scheme of Martha’s bedroom, all the messes, oily and otherwise, showed up very plainly.

      Wow! Tom said.

      Suddenly Martha saw exactly what he meant. Mom is going to be mad? she asked.

      Wow! Tom repeated. You can say that again.

      When Martha started to cry, Tom said, Now stop that. That’s not going to help. You and Ivy start catching them, and I’ll go look for a box. The first thing you’ve got to do is take them back down to the slough, because if they’re still here when Dad gets home, they’re all going to wind up in the freezer.

      That made Martha cry harder than ever. She could barely see for tears all the time she and Ivy were scrambling around the bedroom after the ducks. The ducks, once they were unoiled, seemed to be feeling much livelier; and catching them turned out to be a wet and messy free-for-all. But they were all safely in the box by the time the next Abbott got home. This time it was Cath.

      For once, instead of teasing or complaining, Cath was very helpful. Perhaps it was because she had just gotten home from Girl Scouts and had a Good-Deed-for-the-Day on her mind, or it may just have been that one look at Martha and her bedroom, convinced her that Martha was in for enough trouble already. Anyway, whatever the reason, she had a very helpful idea.

      Cath, who at times really seemed to know almost as much as she thought she did, pointed out that if the ducks were returned to the slough immediately they were sure to die.

      What did you wash them with? she asked. When Martha said detergent, Cath said, That’s what I thought. You’ve removed all their natural oil, along with the black stuff. They won’t be able to float. They’ll just sink right down to the bottom and drown. I learned all about it when I earned my wildlife badge.

      Then, even before Martha could start crying again, Cath went to the phone and called the Humane Society, and in a very short time an animal ambulance truck pulled up in front of the Abbott’s house.

      The truck driver was very sympathetic. He told Martha and Ivy that the ducks would be set free in a safe place as soon as their feathers had had time to regain their natural coating of oil. He put the ducks carefully in the back of the truck, and just before he drove off he said, By the way, girls, have your folks seen you? I mean since you saved the ducks.

      Martha shook her head.

      Well, the man said, maybe it would be a good idea if you tried a little scrubbing on each other before they get home. You know what I mean?

      Martha looked at Ivy and down at herself. She knew what the man meant, all right. She and Ivy were both wet and muddy and oily from one end to the other, and Ivy even had a couple of duck feathers caught in her curly hair. Ivy started laughing, and Martha managed a weak smile.

      Ivy said it didn’t matter about her. It was an old dress anyway and probably no one would even notice. So she went on home, and Martha went back to Cath for advice about her new skirt and her bedroom.

      But this time Cath only said, Ugh, that’s your problem.

      It was a problem all right. Several different cleaning establishments visited the Abbotts’ house before everything was back to normal. And in the meantime Martha was forbidden to play with Ivy for a week.

      It’s not that I blame Ivy for what happened, Martha’s mother said. After all, I don’t suppose she’s had much training about such things. But you certainly should have known better, Martha.

      I know better, Martha said. I just wasn’t thinking about it.

      Perhaps a week without Ivy will make you remember the next time.

      But I promise to remember, Martha begged. I promise the next time I find an oily duck I’ll remember not to put it in my bedroom.

      But Martha’s mother only shook her head. And even after the week was over, she always shook her head when she came home and found Ivy there with Martha. Or if she didn’t actually shake her head, she managed to look as if she were thinking about it.

      So, the Abbotts’ house wasn’t too good a place for Martha and Ivy; and of course, the Carsons’ house wasn’t even a possibility. One time—just one time—Martha tried going home with Ivy. It was not long after the duck incident, and Martha’s parents hadn’t yet gotten around to forbidding her to go to the Carsons’ house. They did forbid it soon afterwards, but by then it wasn’t necessary. Because Martha had already been there and nothing could have made her go back.

      She hadn’t wanted to go, even that first time. But Ivy was on her way home just to get a rope they needed for a game they were playing, and she asked Martha to come along. Come on with me, okay? We’ll get the rope and come right back.

      Martha stammered, not knowing what to say. She couldn’t say no without telling Ivy that she was afraid. It was hard not to be afraid when all her life she’d been hearing stories and rumors about the Carsons and about the decaying old wreck of a house by the freeway. But how could she mention that to Ivy, who was a Carson?

      Okay? Ivy said again, and Martha nodded, swallowing hard, and went along.

      They came upon the house suddenly, breaking out from between the trees of the orchard straight into its spreading shadow. The shadow filled and overflowed a hardpacked area of orchard land that served as a back yard. The yard was cluttered with parts of cars and motorcycles, and stacks of boards and boxes. The orchard trees nearest the house seemed to be dead or dying, and the house itself had a diseased look, with its stained and crumbling walls and its broken windows like dead eyes.

      Ivy led the way up a sagging flight of stairs to what seemed to be a back door. The first room they passed through was rather ordinary, at least it was recognizable as a kitchen. But beyond that there were no real rooms at all. In fact, it seemed less like a house than an immense dark cave, lit only by dim slits of light from far distant windows. In between—everywhere—near and far—there were only rough support posts. Stripped of the walls they had once supported, the ragged posts were hung with bits of plaster and wire and studded with protruding nails. Here and there were a few pieces of old furniture, and in several places Martha could see stacks of cardboard boxes and wooden packing cases. The roar of the freeway seemed to come from directly overhead, and from somewhere very near, came the steady crying of a baby.

      They found the baby lying on a blanket near one of the windows. Boxes had been piled around it to form a playpen, but at the moment it didn’t seem to be trying to get away. It was lying on its back and wailing steadily. When it saw Ivy, it sat up and smiled. Ivy leaned over the box and made strange noises at the baby, and the baby made noises back, smiling all over its round wet face. Martha never knew what to say to a baby, not having had much experience with them, but she could tell that this one and Ivy were well acquainted.

      Who’s baby is that? she asked.

      My mother’s, Ivy said. Her name is Josie.

      It seems to like you, Martha said.

      She likes to talk with me, Ivy said. Babies like talking with people.

      They left the baby, and Ivy led the way around stacks of boxes to a wide curving flight of stairs. The second floor was better. At least all the walls were still there, and it seemed more like a house. There was a wide hallway with many doors, and at the end of the hall a smaller staircase led to the third floor.

      Ivy’s room was on the third floor, and it was very small; but it had a balcony and a vine growing up around the window. The bed was only a camping cot, but there were pots of flowers and pictures from magazines pasted on the walls. Ivy was getting the rope out of the closet—her own rope that she had brought with her from Aunt Evaline’s because a rope was such a handy thing to have—when suddenly the motor roar from the freeway seemed to get louder and closer. Looking down from the balcony, they saw a red truck bouncing over the dirt road that led to the house.

      Who’s that? Martha asked, feeling trapped and frightened.

      My father, I guess, Ivy said. And maybe some of my brothers. Max, probably, and Randy and maybe Bill. We’d better go now.

      On the way down the wide staircase to the main floor, they met a woman carrying a load of clothing. The woman was very thin and gray, and she smiled at them vaguely without saying a word. Ivy hurried Martha through the dim cavern of the ground floor and out the back door. The truck was parked not far away, and several people were standing near it. Most of them were big dark-haired men, and they were talking in loud rough voices.

      As Martha and Ivy walked quickly and quietly across the yard, someone yelled at them, Hey Ivy. Who you got there? Martha looked around and saw that it was Jerry, the Carson boy who was in Tom’s room at school. Ivy grabbed Martha’s hand and went on walking. Then someone, Jerry probably, threw a beer can in their direction. It bounced near Martha’s feet with a clang, and she jumped and made a funny frightened noise. Ivy scooped up the can and threw it back at Jerry; and as she and Martha reached the orchard, they could hear a roar of laughter following them as they ran.

      Martha ran frantically, stumbling on the furrowed ground, as if all the horrors she had ever heard about that house and those people were close behind her. She ran and scrambled until exhaustion stopped her near the crest of the hill. When she dropped, panting, to the ground, Ivy sat down beside her.

      Ivy glanced at Martha once or twice without saying anything. Martha panted and gasped and tried to smile. Ivy picked up a rock and tossed it carelessly in her hand. Finally she threw the rock hard against a tree and said, That crummy Jerry!

      Neither of them mentioned the event after that day, but Ivy never asked Martha again, and certainly Martha never considered going back to the Montoya House. In fact, Martha thought about its existence as little as possible. When she thought of Ivy, she tried to think of her in other places, especially, in Bent Oaks Grove.

      5

      THE WIND AT BENT OAKS grove, sweeping almost constantly over the crest of the hill, skimmed through the topmost branches of the old oaks with a sound like distant voices. The voices raved and moaned or breathed in brushy whispers, according to the mood of the weather; but either way they seemed to be speaking always of secrets and mysteries.

      Bent Oaks Grove was a natural place for secrets; and as Martha and Ivy began spending more and more time there, secrets collected around every part of the grove. Each of the rocks and boulders, and many of the favorite climbing spots in the old trees, acquired secret names and sometimes long and complicated legends. There was, for example, the Fortune Table. The Fortune Table was a small smooth boulder top that almost always had a few fallen leaves on its surface. When you needed to have your fortune told, you swept away the leaves before you went away, and the next day you counted the ones that had fallen on the table during the night. An odd number meant NO, and an even number meant YES; no leaves at all meant that the table had refused to answer.

      The Fortune Table, like most of the early secrets of Bent Oaks Grove, was based on suggestions made by Ivy. Ivy had an almost endless supply of information about magical things. In fact, she seemed to have an endless supply of information about almost everything—and nearly all of it, she said, she had heard from her Aunt Evaline.

      It wasn’t very long until Martha knew a great deal about Ivy’s Aunt Evaline. She knew that Aunt Evaline was not really Ivy’s aunt at all. She was actually a distant relative of Ivy’s father, who lived in the little town where Ivy’s father had grown up. Ivy’s father had once owned an old house in Harley’s Crossing and the Carsons went there from time to time. They had been there when Ivy was born, and afterwards her mother had been very sick and had had to go away for a long time to a hospital. It was then

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